Customer Reviews

Schoolhouses, Courthouses, and Statehouses: Solving the Funding-Achievement Puzzle in America's Public Schools

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This book is a very thoughtful and detailed analysis of the nation's school funding woes. In addition to offering a compelling critique of the manner in which educational dollars have been unthinkly pumped into the educational system (with scant attention to the return on investment), the authors lay out suggested reforms that could help us get more bang for our collective buck.

Coherence emerges from this thoughtful synthesis of reform initiatives that have come from lawyers, legislators, economists, activists and school district leaders. The author has been both a watchful observer, and in some cases, an involved participant. This gives him the benefit of both the insider's view and the outsider's perspective. The perfect book for anyone who cares to better understand the forces at work when educators, legislators and lawyers wrestle over school funding. The author is free of the ideological blinders that have hindered the debate.

The book Schoolhouses... is not an exercise in cheerleading for one of the many partisan agendas in the national debate over reforming and improving American public education. Instead, it is a dispassionate and widely inclusive assembly of fact and research, which informs that debate more fully by far than any of the numerous advocates who do carry an agenda.
As a one-time senior educator and current worrier about the future of my grandchildren and their peers, I find this the most informative and specifically constructive book, or source of any kind, I have yet encountered.
We have here facts from areas often overlooked but directly pertinent. "Fixing" our public education has been going on for several decades, so Hanushek and Lindseth are able to consider the results of policies set by political leaderships, by legislators and by judicial fiats. Lessons, both positive and negative, abound and are described.
Despite the public flurry over the years, however, the authors lament the paucity of detailed data that reveal what is happening with the growth of each child's intellectual strengths in the classroom. The data that do exist are sufficient to show that all the efforts taken, funds spent, and angst over education have brought us little or no improvement. And the authors make a persuasive case for predicting the impact on our economy and its future growth.
Meanwhile, as the US has flatlined the quality of our children's education and therefore their future for many decades, the majority of the industrialized world has passed us up.
The evidence assembled by Hanushek and Lindseth points a clear route out of stagnation. By page 218, we are led to "Guiding Principles: Back to Basics", a set of actions based on knowing what happens in each classroom to each student.
Every reviewer is obliged to include a telling quote. This is mine: after setting out their "Guiding Principles", the authors write "The proverbial Martian...presented with this list might say, `And you had to write a book about this?' Our answer: `Unfortunately, yes.' " The authors go on to say, "...the historic response has been `Yes, we see the logic in the arguments, but it really is hard.' Thus, it has been much easier to keep the general structure of current policy and finance and concentrate efforts on deepening and reinforcing existing incentives and operations. Easier, but mostly ineffective."
Schoolhouses... should be open on the desk - not the shelf - of every individual who has a role in and seeks to improve any slice of American public education, small or large.
Brad Hosmer

The authors have written a helpful and candid appraisal of the problems (and solutions for) in public education. They have included data in a useful way and yet the text is written so that the average reader does not have to unravel the "inside baseball" sacred cows that are always paraded out when these discussions take place. I would say that many "career" educators and interest groups like teachers unions and politicians will not admit the reality of the authors's conclusions and prescriptions. If the book gets traction in the marketplace they will likely be hammered by those that believe "more money" is always the answer. Too bad the federal government is continuing to exert it's strangle hold on public education--that hisorically was premised on local control--but we all know you just "follow the money. Great book and very timely.

Author and economist Eric Hanushek has been an expert witness in the most important school finance trials of the last four decades; Hanushek is probably best known, however, for his encompassing studies of the effect of class size, teacher education, teacher experience, etc. while Professor at the University of Rochester. Co-author Lindseth played a role as attorney representing states (Fl., N.Y., N.D.) in many important school finance cases. The primary value of this book is in its providing an exhaustive and credible discussion of decades of school funding and research on student achievement. The authors clearly demonstrate the dominance and failure of input-oriented (more money, smaller class sizes, more teacher education, etc.) reform strategies. Next, they describe how the court system has sometimes mandated these same failed input-reform strategies, and how these efforts failed as well. The final section contains suggestions for more effective education funding, based on performance improvement.

"Schoolhouses, Courthouses, and Statehouses" begins by summarizing the importance of education, and then our recent achievement trends and performance in international comparisons. U.S. achievement for 17-year-olds measured by the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) has remained essentially flat for more than 30 years. (Reading scores unchanged from 1970-04, math scores up slightly, and science scores down slightly.) Meanwhile, per pupil inflation-adjusted spending has almost quadrupled ($2,602 in 1960 to $9,910 in 2005). Nobel economist James Heckman (2007 National Bureau of Economic Research Report # 13670) concluded that our high-school graduation rates peaked at about 80% in the 1960s, and have fallen about 4 percentage points since. In 1975 the U.S. led most nations in high-school graduation rates. We now rank below the average (both achievement and years of school completed) among the world's most developed nations, even though we also outspend most by a wide margin. The average U.S. student's 12-grade math achievement is at the 27th percentile for Finland and Korea, and our average years of schooling in 2003 was lower than the OECD average, as well as Brazil, South Korea, and others.

A 1985 Kansas City federal court mandate nearly doubled education expenditures in that city over a decade-plus period. This also failed to raise the scores of its students on nationally normed tests or otherwise improve achievement (Paul Ciotti, 1998. "Money and School Performance: Lessons from the Kansas City Desegregation Experiment," Cato Institute; Williamson Evers and Paul Clopton, 2006). Almost 75% of studies find no statistically significant relation between class size and pupil achievement - those that do disagree whether the relationship is positive or negative. Other sources repeatedly find that early gains of any origin are eventually lost. Over 90% of the available studies about the impact of teacher education level find no statistically significant impact beyond the first two years. Similarly, research on the impact of teacher salary levels finds no impact. (Thus, discussions of funding equity are irrelevant.)

If we could eliminate the bottom 6-10% of teachers (measured by effectiveness), overall achievement would rise to the level of the better European nations (Barber & Mourshed - McKinsey). Also per Michael Barber, the best school systems in the world do not allow ineffective teachers to remain in the classroom for long, and focus on selecting the best candidates to start with. Not so in America.

Despite the preceding trends and studies, two-thirds of the public believe greater spending provides greater achievement. Most Americans also grossly underestimate the levels of school funding. A 2008 survey found that 40% estimated school spending at less than $1,000/child/year - the median estimate was less than $2,000/year. Actual spending averaged over $10,000/pupil. The surveyors also found that respondents significantly underestimated teacher salaries as well, by about 1/3. Given correct information, parents' likelihood to support additional spending fell by about 10-20 percentage points (William Howell and Martin West, "Is the Price Right? Probing Americans' Knowledge of School Spending").

At the same time, parents have inconsistent views of their local schools vs. U.S. schools overall. A 2007 majority thought their own school deserved an A or B, while at the same time only 14% thought U.S. schools overall deserved an A or B grade ("Phi Delta Kappan," Sept. 2007, Lowell C. Rose and Alec M. Gallup). This is mathematically impossible.

Hanushek and Lindseth end by suggesting various incentive schemes, especially more charter schools. However, recent published findings elsewhere have found that charter schools succeed no better than standard public schools. (The real secret of success - vastly increased pupil and parental motivation, and working harder - such as in Asia.)

Bottom-Line: "Schoolhouses, Courthouses, and Statehouses" is a credible and valuable source of information on education, documenting how the explosion in funding over the last several decades has failed to bring improvements, as well as large-scale research. It is essential that we face reality and accept its findings, and then look to Asia for better approaches.

There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of books on education reform. Few are as important as this. Hanushek and Lindseth get to the bottom of the dysfunctional public school finance system and expose the damage that a quarter century of equity suits has brought about. The chapter on the consequences of equal protection law suits is particularly important. It is first class scholarship and makes a great new contribution to knowledge.

Hanusheck and Lindseth ask a very interesting question. Suppose you could go back in time to 1960 and offer educators the following deal: we will quadruple your per-capita, inflation-adjusted budget for education. We will also make sure that schools with large minority populations receive equal funding. But once we do this you will have to accept personal responsibility for the state of American schools. You may not continue to blame a lack of funds or other factors beyond your school. The authors speculate that educators would jump at the deal and I agree. Fifty years later the public has kept up their end of the bargain but educators have not taken responsibility for the dismal state of education.

The central theme of this book is that the public has to make educators take responsibility. The teachers unions are too powerful of an entrenched special interest to budge. They offer numerous suggestions based around supplying public oversight. They defend No Child Left Behind. They show that states already had a trend towards providing oversight prior to the law, and those states which had real consequences for bad schools produced the best results. The early results of NCLB showed small improvements in school quality.

They also criticize the movement towards smaller classes. They point out that support for small classes is largely based on the Tennessee STAR study and it was poorly designed. Hundreds of other studies on class size disagree. California has moved to smaller classes but education has not improved as a result. In fact, it may have gotten worse, at least for the poor. The movement towards smaller classes meant that schools had to hire extra teachers. Experienced teachers left inner-city schools for the suburbs. Moreover, even if you accept the research in favor of smaller classes it is perhaps the most inefficient use of educational dollars imaginable.

Merit pay for teachers is a much better use of funds, but the teachers unions staunchly oppose it. They also oppose firing poor teachers (where else in education can you get lifetime tenure after three years?). Here they produce what I think is the most horrifying statistic in the book: the worst 5% of teachers only give their students two-thirds of a grade's worth of improvement each year. Simply firing these teachers would improve the United States education system to the point where it is comparable to Canada and Europe. The authors also point out that a running theme for nations with good educational systems is that they do not allow bad teachers to remain teaching for long.

Readers might also like No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning. It makes the case that blacks do poorly in education because of a culture that does not properly value education, and not a lack of resources. The Schools We Need: And Why We Don't Have Them is also good. It documents the need for a "back to basics" approach based on core knowledge.

Puts to rest all the myths about how to fix K-12 public education in this country. He won't gain any friends among the teacher's unions and the under-achieveing teachers. If this was mandatory reading for the parents of young children, the crisis in public education would be solved.

This is an excellent book. Having read most of this book I feel I understand what's wrong with America's public schools and have a pretty good idea of what would make them better. I probably would not send my kids to a public school knowing what I know now. This book is well researched, non-partisan and very readable for the first couple of chapters.

I didn't finish the book because I got a little bored with it, but don't let that stop you from reading it. It's still worth it - I only skipped two chapters and may come back to them one day.

I often sell my books after I buy them, but I plan to keep this one because it is packed with valuable information, statistics and graphs.

Dr. Hanushek, thanks for writing this book.