Bad Students, Not Bad Schools

Robert Weissberg

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781412813457
• eBook ISBN: 9781351297707
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Americans are increasingly alarmed over our nation's educational deficiencies. Though anxieties about schooling are unending, especially with public institutions, these problems are more complex than institutional failure. Expenditures for education have exploded, and far exceed inflation and the rising costs of health care, but academic achievement remains flat. Many students are unable to graduate from high school, let alone obtain a college degree. And if they do make it to college, they are often forced into remedial courses. Why, despite this fiscal extravagance, are educational disappointments so widespread?

In Bad Students, Not Bad Schools, Robert Weissberg argues that the answer is something everybody knows to be true but is afraid to say in public America's educational woes too often reflect the demographic mix of students. Schools today are filled with millions of youngsters, too many of whom struggle with the English language or simply have mediocre intellectual ability. Their lackluster performances are probably impervious to the current reform prescriptions regardless of the remedy's ideological derivation. Making matters worse, retention of students in school is embraced as a philosophy even if it impedes the learning of other students. Weissberg argues that most of America's educational woes would vanish if indifferent, troublesome students were permitted to leave when they had absorbed as much as they could learn; they would quickly be replaced by learning-hungry students, including many new immigrants from other countries.

American education survives since we import highly intelligent, technically skillful foreigners just as we import oil, but this may not last forever. When educational establishments get serious about world-class mathematics and science, and permit serious students to learn, problems will dissolve. Rewarding the smartest, not spending fortunes in a futile quest to uplift the bottom, should become official policy. This book is a bracing reminder of the risks of political manipulation of education and argues that the measure of policy should be academic achievment.

1

Introduction A Nation at Risk or a Nation in Denial?

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.

—Groucho Marx

To see what is front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.

—George Orwell

Americans are increasingly alarmed over our nation’s educational deficiencies, and though bewailing schooling, especially public ones, is unending, these tribulations are real. Expenditures have exploded, far exceeding inflation or even rising health care costs, but academic achievement remains flat. Many students cannot even obtain a dumbed-down high school degree and if they do make it into college, they are forced to take remedial courses and often flunk these. Why the widespread disappointments despite fiscal extravagance, let alone hundreds of “guaranteed” reforms? The answer we submit is simple and can be summarized under four awkward truths.

First, though there are ample exceptions, millions of American students from kindergarten to college are intellectually mediocre, lack ambition, and anti-intellectualism is rampant. In most communities sports far outshine academics and this passion is true even at many elite universities. Conceivably, moreover, America’s intellectual capital is declining as schools increasingly attempt to teach recently-arrived immigrants, many of whom struggle with English, from nations lacking strong educational traditions.

Second, educational failure is generally more profitable, financially and otherwise, than success though every well-paid school administrator, foundation executive, and vote-hungry politicians will deny this damnation. Falling test scores only beget more money, more jobs, and more lucrative foolishness to keep the failed educational industrial complex afloat. “Helping the children” is today’s Great Society welfare colossus.

Third, the true cost of academic excellence—hard work, diligence, repeated failure—is too burdensome, so despite our collective wailing, our fear of overseas competition, we relish academic mediocrity because it is easier. Gift grades and gratuitous praise often painlessly help keep the peace. Given a choice between unearned self-esteem and earning it the hard way, the former is irresistible.

Finally, we are a nation in denial about why America’s schools perform poorly. With relatively few exceptions, Americans refuse to look in the mirror and confess personal responsibility. Students and parents readily accept high grades for mediocre work. We live in a world where schools (buildings, desks, books) but not the students in them “fail.” If junior can’t read, somebody else is to blame, the government should fix the problem and don’t tell me otherwise! Who wants to admit that one’s offspring is not too bright, poorly motivated, and that lavish spending for continued failure only serves to put bread on millions of tables?

The apt parallel is how Americans wrestle with obesity. Both schooling and dieting reflect a common mind-set: spend generously to minimize painful exertion so fortunes await pundits promising easy alternatives to a strenuous regimen. In the case of weight loss, the basic, serviceable formula of eating less, exercising more is too arduous for millions unable to control appetites; substituted instead are cosmetic plastic surgery, stomach staples, diet pills, hypnosis, and gimmick meal plans by the dozens promising instant, effortless slimness. Trying to lose weight often becomes shifting from one promised elixir to the next, just as in “reforming education.” Older readers may recall the “smart pill” that instantly brought erudition with zero effort or, lacking this pill, just place books under the pillow so as to wake up smarter. Today the “smart pill” has been replaced by vouchers, abolishing teacher tenure, multiculturalism, small theme-based schools, boosting self-esteem, paying students to learn, laptop computers for everyone, national standards, business-like accountability and dozens—if not hundreds—of similar painless but guaranteed-to-fail quick fixes.

The Academic Accomplishment Formula

Progress requires a broad understanding of what education entails, and while hardly simple, key ingredients and their relationships can be summarized by the following formula:

This shorthand formula for academic achievement integrates the major elements in today’s education debates. It hopefully overcomes the blindfolded men all trying to describe the elephant problem—those focusing on one item typically neglect others. In words, students achieve academically if: (1) they are sufficiently smart; (2) are motivated and possess decent work habits; (3) have books or whatever else required for mastering the subjects; (4) the instructional format makes the material accessible given their ability; and, (5) teachers properly explicate lessons. Failure occurs when dull, lackadaisical students daydream in chaotic classrooms lacking resources presided over by an incompetent teacher. The recipe has been recognized for centuries and perhaps its plain-Jane nature makes it easy to ignore.

The formula has powerful implications for educational progress. Elements are multiplied so if any term is “0,” the final result is “0.” It is not an additive formula; one cannot compensate for a “0” (or close to “0”) anywhere by upping values elsewhere. If the billions wasted on educational tinkering tell us anything, it is that students who hate school will not suddenly shine if bused to palatial schools or will the innumerate relish math if handed free programmable calculators. Conversely, smart motivated students excel in decrepit buildings with out-of-date textbooks. With these five components in place, the next step is to assign weights regarding the contribution of each to achievement. This must be a bit speculative but the following weighting seems plausible:

This “human capital” model says that student intellectual ability has a huge impact (a value of 8) on academic accomplishment, followed by motivation (a value of 4) while resources, pedagogy and instruction (1 each) have far less force though are scarcely trivial.

Intelligence means the mental capacity to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly, and profit from experience. IQ scores roughly, but not entirely, summarize cognitive capacities. The scientific evidence on the relevance of cognitive ability for academic performance is overwhelming. Writing in the late 1990s Arthur Jensen notes that Psychological Abstracts lists some 11,000 studies linking IQ and educational attainment, and the connection is indisputable (Jensen 1998, 277–82). The average correlation is 0.5, a figure quite high by social science research standards though, as one might expect, variations exist across studies. This relationship is not simply a function of socio-economic status—brains strongly affects school performance even within families where siblings all share the same economic advantage, and while having rich parents helps, the correlation between family income and education is much lower. An overview of almost 200 studies of this connection conducted in 1982 found that the correlation between parental economic status and their children’s educational success averaged about 0.22 (White, 1982).

Heavily weighting motivation, a summary term for discipline, tenacity, organization, fortitude, and work ethic among other “Calvinist” traits derives less from scientific studies than history and commonplace observation. An old Indian expressed it perfectly: when the student is ready to learn, the teacher arrives. The world abounds with examples of high achievers with no more than above average intellect who triumphed thanks to drive and formidable work habits. A recent analysis of six successful schools largely teaching Native Americans, Hispanics, and inner-city blacks found that a strong emphasis on discipline, diligence, delayed gratification, politeness, and other middle class “character” factors could produce stellar academic outcomes (Whitman 2008). Teachers observe this daily and upping commitment is one of the profession’s main tasks. Obviously, sheer tenacity cannot overcome low intelligence otherwise dullards could be doctors. Still, mediocre intellects can succeed in countless fields by just paying careful attention, putting in long hours, endlessly practicing, and otherwise being “a grind.”

This unequal weighting, including the low values assigned to resources, pedagogy, and teaching and the absolute importance of the student characteristics is easily observed though its implications for educational progress are seldom openly acknowledged. New York City during the 1930s, 40s, and 50s was renowned for its superb public schools, and Ivy League colleges imposed strict quotas (usually 5 percent) to stem the flow of bright, ambitious (and mainly Jewish) New Yorkers. Then in the early 60s the city’s once admired system “collapsed” as blacks, most freshly arrived from segregated, under-funded Southern schools, increasingly enrolled though the pedagogy, resources and teachers scarcely changed.

More recent has been the arrival of at least 15,000 students to New York City’s schools from rural Dominican Republic, Tibet, Central America, and elsewhere who barely had any prior schooling, are illiterate, speak halting English and are extremely poor (Medina, January 25, 2009). Many lack the most rudimentary school-related skills, e.g., knowing how to ask a question. To insist that the usual “educational reforms” (e.g., school choice, better teacher pay, administrative accountability, modern technology, etc., etc.) will succeed when even those in the early grades are years behind is fantasy. It is estimated that 5.1 million students in the US (a 60 percent jump between 1995 and 2005) currently struggle with English (and 77 percent of these are Spanish-speaking). According to experts, it will require five to seven years before their English will permit them to read a novel or understand a scientific process at a level comparable to their English-speaking classmates (Thompson, 2009). It is no wonder that many flee school as early as possible—their lessons may be indecipherable. Yet one more time, students, not the schools, are the crux of the problem.

The next step is to assign values to each learning-producing factor, e.g., the motivation level at a given moment. To simplify, assume that each factor has a range of 1 to 10 with “5” being average and 10 the highest possible score. Thus, a typical class would have “5s” across the board—nondescript students with ordinary motivation, commonplace resources, nondescript pedagogy, and middling teachers. Given the unequal weights of these five factors, a modest increase in intellectual talent and motivation would substantially alter overall outcomes; by contrast, importing a gifted teacher or drastically reducing class size would barely help. To boost test scores, the best practical solution would be to replace most below average students with ambitious budding geniuses.

Misallocating Resources

This human capital model and possible values understood, the next question is how best to invest scarce resources to maximize educational attainment. It is here that America’s tribulations become apparent. Paradoxically, it is the equation’s right side—the least important contributors to achievement—that mesmerizes today’s reformers. Huge sums are invested in building over-the-top schools, developing cuttingedge pedagogy, and trying to improve instruction while, as subsequent chapters will demonstrate, the formula’s first two elements—brains and motivation—are largely neglected. Yet it is obvious that millions spent on cutting-edge textbooks are pointless if students refuse to read them or are befuddled by the book’s ideas. In business terms, contemporary educational tinkerers misallocate investments. Cognitive talent and motivation are the places to invest. In sports this would be as if a basketball franchise with inept, lackadaisical players tried to reverse its fortunes by constructing a spectacular new arena, adding high-tech training facilities, inventing clever new plays, and hiring a Hall of Fame coach. This patently foolish strategy would immediately enrage fans paying to watch ineptitude and lack of hustle. But this is exactly what occurs in American education.

Emphasizing the last three relatively less critical elements reflects political expediency, not sound educational policy-making. This is the path of least resistance in today’s world of dysfunctional “reform.” Nobody is angered when educators keep silent about slackers more inclined to socialize than study. Add the promise of immense tax-payer generosity—billions for new facilities, millions for technological gimmicks and teacher bonuses, and all the rest that “helping the children” entails. Conservatives with their pet nostrums—charter schools, vouchers, accountability—are equally guilty of misdiagnosing the problem and avoiding giving offense. Do these “experts” really believe that if lazy students can go school shopping they will be miraculously transformed into accomplished, motivated learners? Focusing on the last three elements also offer excellent rhetorical opportunities for ambitious office-seekers—one can quickly become “an education mayor” by promising new school construction with state-of-the-art Internet facilities stocked with hundreds of newly-hired counselors, administrators, role models, daycare workers, and learning coaches. A campaign built on “its time to kick some butt in our schools” will attract far fewer voters.

Dwelling on the last three elements demonstrates a remarkable inattention to return on investment. Educators and a gullible public seem ever willing to spend lavishly though progress fails to arrive. The upshot of reaching a plateau is not, however, rethinking future allocations. Instead, as traditional, sensible remedies fail, and the latest expensive gimmicky panaceas likewise come up short, “experts” increasingly gravitate toward more bizarre, more desperate solutions, e.g., free cell-phone minutes for doing homework. This is particularly visible in the fads afflicting pedagogy: American schools have gone from teachers sternly imparting knowledge and punishing slackers (hardly fun but effective) to teachers helping students “discover” what they “already knew” to classrooms where ignorance is flattered to strengthen self-esteems or racial pride which, we are assured, will somehow inspire a thirst for knowledge. If students refuse to read books, add spiffy pictures; if that fails, add color; if that, too, falls short, pay them to read or replace textbooks with video games; and if that, too, is unsuccessful, denounce book learning as only one path to knowledge and hardly suitable for all children.

Upping Human Capital and Boosting Motivation

National cognitive talent levels may initially appear permanent or at least beyond manipulation. In reality, however, school smarts are readily manageable if public officials and those who vote for them are willing to pay the price. Unfortunately for champions of academic excellence, the political cost is far too burdensome. Given a choice between “controversial” policies that offend versus academic mediocrity, the latter is always preferred. What makes this choice tolerable is America’s ability to import brains as we now import oil—why crack the whip on lazy Americans when smart, disciplined foreigners arrive daily? And, unlike foreign oil, the overseas pool of talent seems limitless, cheap (at least for the present) and buying it off the shelf from India or China is less painful than pressuring Junior to master calculus.

Charles Murray speaks this awkward truth when he notes that America can readily solve its educational woes by once again limiting educational access (Murray, 2008). It is the “democratization” of schooling—a diploma for nearly everyone—that brings those into the classroom who can barely master the material and, critically, to insist that these youngsters can be proficient is romantic foolishness. Critics gleefully recalling an earlier era of 8th graders doing today’s college-level work conveniently forget that those students intellectually far out-shined today’s 8th graders. If one single genuine “magic bullet” cure for American’s education decline exists, it would be to eliminate the bottom quarter of those past 8th grade. Unfortunately, the “democratization” of education seems to be irresistible as educational reformers increasingly call for enrolling semiliterates in college as if a degree itself certifies proficiency. New York City tried this in the late 1960s with “open admission” to the city’s elite universities and it was disastrous, a cure worse than the disease. Perhaps the financial gain from this foolishness explains it all.

Revising America’s immigration standards could dramatically improve our school populations. Canada, Australia, and Singapore, among others, explicitly tilt their immigration policy towards the academically adept and the U.S. could certainly follow suit though the political heat would be intense. To be sure, accusations of “racism” would be immediate but, as we note below, some of America’s top college students are black though they (or their parents) were born overseas. Foreign engineers can be enticed with citizenship, not H1-B temporary visas. Even more controversial, though certainly feasible, would be deporting the families of students here illegally, many of whom are academically troublesome, and this might even include offspring born in the United States.

Even without touching the hot-button immigration issue, America’s schools could be intellectually upgraded by encouraging academically overwhelmed students to depart voluntarily after 8th grade or pursue more economically-useful vocational training in proprietary schools (with government paying tuition). Additional resources might also be poured into schools catering to the very bright, a tactic that is widely ignored despite its obvious potential. All of this might economically benefit everyone, from the newly technically-skilled workers to consumers who complain about long waits to have their cars repaired.

Student academic indifference is likewise pushed off the public agenda though schools are hardly defenseless against lethargy if they so choose. For decades American schools successfully prodded students but in ways largely verboten today—namely, the threat of corporal punishment, ridicule, shame (the Dunce cap and public tongue lashings), calling in parents to terrify slothful offspring, and countless other proven though politically-incorrect remedies. The bad news is that in their place are iffy “kinder” gimmicks concocted by Education School professors that more resemble entertainment than imparting discipline. This is a world where helping students means shielding them from purely psychological discomfort, let alone harsh criticism. Even forcing youngsters to sit still and silently concentrate as a precondition for learning, a practice central to Japanese schools, is “unacceptable” in today’s climate more attuned to “exciting” students’ “natural” curiosity.

A 175-year-old Catholic grade school, the Transfiguration School, in New York City’s Chinatown exemplifies how stellar achievement is possible on near starvation budgets when smart students are driven to excel. Outward material conditions would predict problems: class size far exceeds the City’s ave...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• 1 Introduction: A Nation at Risk or a Nation in Denial?
• 2 Bad Students, Not Bad Schools
• 3 Motivating Students or You Can Take a Horse to Water and Make a Dehydrated Equine Feel Better about Herself
• 4 Closing the Racial Gap in Academic Achievement
• 5 The “War” on Academic Excellence
• 6 The Museum of Failed Educational Reforms
• 7 Business-like Solutions to Academic Insufficiency
• 8 The Alluring Choice Solution or Why Educating Students Is Not Manufacturing Cheap Flat Screen TVs
• 9 Reforming Education Is the New Great Society and Why Fixing Schools May Well Subvert the Social Peace
• 10 Hope?
• Works Cited
• Index