We Need to Get Past Simplistic Higher Ed Policy Debates

Contemplating repaying those student loans / Francisco Osorio, CC BY 2.0 

A friend passed along this great, detailed New York Times op-ed by law prof Paul Campos, where he critically examines the prevailing conventional wisdom that skyrocketing higher ed tuition (and student loan debt) is due to eroding state support for higher education. If you, like me, are interested in these issues and missed this back in April, give it a read.

Higher education policy is one of those areas where public - and legislative - debate often boils down to painfully simplistic talking points that completely obscure the *real* sources of our problems with achieving efficient allocation of tax dollars, optimized investment in our people (or our workforce, for those who think talking about "people" is too warm and fuzzy), etc.  The old polarized arguments - We need to support education! vs. Grads make a lot of money & should pay for their own degrees! - don't cut it.

I've been suspicious of the claim that the skyrocketing tuition/fees and increasing student loan burdens are due - or even mostly due - to dwindling state support.  My suspicion is compounded by the reality that we've seen similar inflation in the private schools, who've long seemed to be in a bidding war to prove how "prestigious" they are through their pricing ... and we've seen public graduate and professional programs follow suit.

How Small Annual Payments Made a Huge Difference for Kids' Development

Greater economic stability helps families, and children, thrive / Photo: Mike Keran, CC BY 2.0

A study newly released by the National Bureau for Economic Research has HUGE implications for US social policy.  And it's all thanks to an accidental natural experiment. 

Four years into a ten-year study of 1,430 rural kids' mental health in North Carolina, the Eastern Band of Cherokees built a casino.  A quarter of the children being studied were affiliated with the tribe, which decided to distribute at least some casino profits as annual per capita payments.  The tribe paid out about $4,000 per person per year, or $16,000/yr for a family with four enrolled tribal members.  The per capitas boosted the families' incomes by just under 20% on average.

The impact on these children's mental health and their development of pro-social personality traits was substantial.  The stabilizing effect of the payments helped reduce family discord, promoted marital cohesion, and resulted in reduced alcohol abuse rates among parents receiving the boost in income, all of which made positive, lasting impacts on the kids.  And the children who'd been struggling the most benefited the most.

Deconstructing the US Math Education “Crisis,” Part I

Actual public school middle school math / US Dept. of Education, CC BY 2.0

75% of our nation's high school seniors probably aren’t mathematically incompetent, despite a recent recurrence of the nearly annual hysteria to the contrary.

Associated Press, May 7, 2014: US 12th graders make an "ABYSMAL showing" in math and reading according to the 2013 NAEP results.  "Only about one-quarter are performing proficiently or better in math and just 4 in 10 in reading." "America's high school seniors lack critical math and reading skills for an increasingly competitive global economy." (emphases added) 

PANIC!  CRISIS!  Blood in the streets! Dogs and cats getting married ...

BUT ... WAIT a minute.  Is this really a crisis?  Are 75% of our 12^th graders honestly mathematical nitwits, as reporting on the NAEP results seems to imply?  I wanted to know, so I mucked around the NAEP website. 

Based on what I gleaned from the NAEP Test Framework, the skills that the "Basic up to almost Proficient" students generally lack (compared to the "Proficient and Above" students) are unlikely to negatively impact their general readiness for college or work.  These skills are necessary in specific STEM-related positions where advanced mathematical concepts are utilized on a daily - or even monthly - basis.  "STEM-related" jobs are anticipated to number just 5.6% of all jobs in 2022.  

All hand-wringing aside, this is not a crisis. 

Q1: How is "Proficient" defined?  How does it fit into the rubric of the performance levels that the National Center for Ed Statistics uses?

Do K-12 Teachers Need Master's Degrees to Be Effective?

Kindergarten in session / Woodley Wonderworks CC BY 2.0

In Oregon, all newly licensed teachers (who already completed an accredited teacher education program, in addition to whatever subject matter course work might be required for teaching an academic subject in grades six through twelve) have six to nine years in which to earn a Master's degree (or complete a comparable quantity of graduate education) if they wish to retain their teaching license. This is true from Kindergarten through grade twelve. 

After reviewing a number of non-licensure graduate programs in education in the Portland, Oregon area, I began wondering about the following:

1. Are such requirements necessary? What is an elementary school teacher going to glean from a Master's in Ed program that will be worth the $18,000-40,000 cost (not to mention the opportunity cost of losing a year of income, if undertaken full-time) in terms of teaching efficacy and/or financial return?  If the accredited teacher-prep programs don't provide adequate preparation in pedagogy, why aren't those being scrutinized for revision instead, so that new teachers have the tools they need when they first enter the classroom? 

2. Are such requirements sensible in terms of national fiscal policy? With Direct Loan balance forgiveness available after 10 years of public service work post-degree, is the return on a teacher's Master's worth the cost to tax-payers?