I ran across this site recently called the Becker-Posner Blog. It’s a blog run by Gary Becker, an economist and Nobel laureate, and Richard Posner, a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Imagine a couple of guys like that having a blog, of all things!

Anyway, in an entry from 2005, Gary Becker had this to say about how to improve the education system in America, and I thought it was interesting enough to post here for discussion:

My thoughts on this are as follows: it is my belief that the current system, which rewards schools for good test scores by its students is highly ineffective. It does not encourage schools to spend money on better teachers, teacher training, or equipment. It encourages only extra preparation for tests, which rarely require “smart” skills. That is, most, if not all, of these tests, such as the MCAS in Massachusetts, require the ability to add and subtract, and maybe the knowledge of a few geometric rules (though generally, these laws are even provided), as well as the ability to write at length about a passage, or search for key words in a passage that give away its meaning. Such skills are not really helpful, nor do they build intellect; it is my opinion personally that it would be much more important for such tests to concentrate on abilities such as interpretation of history, which I believe is a vital skill, one that demonstrates actual intelligence and knowledge.

But what is more important is that no single test can determine whether or not a school is doing a good job educating its students. More so, a good education, in my experience, depends more on one’s parents than school. Parents that place a high value on education are more likely to take part in their child’s education, to help their children out, and to pressure their child’s school to improve its standards and curriculum as well. In most cases, children with parents who value education go to better schools, and receive more education outside of school.

So the question then becomes how can the government make parents care more? As is often the case, the answer lies, in my opinion, in economic stimulus. That is, instead of of offering schools money if they improve their students’ test scores, why not offer money to parents of students who do well in the form of tax breaks? First of all, this eliminates the need for tests, since the need to compare schools across the country disappears. Instead, students can be compared to other students in the same school. The government, for example, could offer $1,000 tax breaks to parents if their child finishes in the top 10% of their grade. This would stimulate parents to encourage their child’s education, both within a school and outside of it. More so, competition by definition under such a program would increase because the amount of money being distributed (and the amount of families receiving it) would be fixed, as opposed to a program that requires minimum test scores that are the same every year, resulting in a certain amount of complacency in the better schools (who cares if you get 95% or 85% as long as you pass?). And of course, competition results in better results.

There are roughly 17 million high school children in America. So that would mean that my suggested program would cost about $1.7 billion, only about 1.3% of the total money the federal government spends on education. However, it seems to me that encouraging individuals to improve their child’s education would have much greater impact on the overall level of education than telling schools to improve students’ scores on tests that do a poor job of measuring actual educational quality. In short (I know, this e-mail has not really been short), it seems clear that the federal government should be concentrating on individuals, not schools, when it implements programs to improve education in America.

I realize I’m rushing in where angels fear to tread by arguing with a Nobel laureate, but it seems to me this theory assumes an even playing field for the students/parents which obviously does not exist. Pitting the college-educated two-parent families against the high-school-drop-out single-parent households is hardly a fair fight, no matter what the prize is. That’s why the Federal government evaluates the school as a whole — to make sure that all the children are achieving. Becker’s theory would end up with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.