Dan Carpenter wrote one of the most poorly informed and badly reasoned editorials I have ever read today, in the Indianapolis Star. The occasion was a report that the high school graduation rate in Indiana is 73%, making the state rank 23rd in the nation. Here it is, in its entirety:
Another study of school dropout rates by another tribe of number-crunching Magi has been delivered unto us, and what do we have from it?
Not just another club to use against the already battered public schools, I hope against hope.
For while it’s well and good to seek accurate statistics and hold our educators’ feet to the fire, there are severe limits to what schools can do to keep kids from leaving.
It does come down to individual and family choice, which is something you would think would resonate with the advocates of minimal government and “school options” who so relentlessly scrutinize public education.
If dropping out is a problem, it’s less an educational one than a social one. It’s also historical. Schooling’s never enjoyed high esteem in the red states, and our current Hoosier leaders don’t care enough about preparing the future work force to put money where their mouths are. Besides, the majority of the Indiana General Assembly owe their seats to voters who don’t believe in evolution. You do the figurin’.
I responded with a comment, which I will put below the “more” in its entirety just in case the Star doesn’t like my tone and doesn’t print it. But here’s the gist:
(1) Everyone who reads this blog knows I believe the problems with education in general, not just public education, are more cultural than pedagogical and especially pertain to the decline in parenting. But to suggest that the culture involved is the culture of Republicanism (“Schooling’s never enjoyed high esteem in the red states”) is ridiculous. Check out this map of the graduation rates for 2002-2003:
And compare with this map of the 2004 electoral vote results:
Note that the reds and blues don’t conincide; a lot of the highest graduation rates happen in the red states, and a lot of the lowest ones happen in the blue states. In other words, historical political affiliation has nothing to do with it, and Carpenter’s statement is just sneering condescension, “unencumbered by the thought process“.
(2) Is he suggesting that people who favor school choice don’t think this is a cultural issue? Has he talked to them? Does he, in fact, know any of them?
(3) Why does he think that more money will fix the problem, especially when by their own admission the problem is one of individual and family choice and is therefore separate from any issue of funding? And especially when spending has already been going up for decades?
(4) What’s with the jab at creationists? I am not a creationist, but I am strongly skeptical of Carpenter’s assertion that the Indiana legislature owes their seats to anti-evolutionists (again, evidence please) and, more importantly, that people who don’t buy wholesale into evolution are embodiments of dumbness and anti-intellectualism on the face of it. Again, sneering condescension substitutes for journalism.
(5) When the public schools are doing badly, why do we want to protect them from “battering” (read: scrutiny and accountability) as if they were a pet? I guess because perhaps to some people they are a pet?
Public schools aren’t going to get any better with reactionary, illogical quasi-journalism like this.
(Click for the whole response…)
For someone who offhandedly bashes creationists, presumably because they don’t believe in scientific evidence, Mr. Carpenter certainly seems afraid to believe the evidence pointing at serious flaws in the public schools. He hopes that an “already battered” public school system won’t take any more damage because of what the “Magi” uncover. They are trained researchers and statisticians, Mr. Carpenter, not “Magi”, and we need to listen to what the numbers tell us and not be afraid to demand change.
First, it is absurd to suggest that the cultural element that is causing the problem is the political makeup of midwestern states (“Schooling’s never enjoyed high esteem in the red states”). The color of the state has nothing to do with it; the three lowest graduation rates among the 50 largest public school districts are Detroit (21.7%), Balitmore (38.5%), and New York (38.9%) and they are all in firmly blue states*. In fact the highest graduation rates for the 2002-2003 school year appear to be evenly distributed across all midwestern states, regardless of “color”**. But it would seem that Mr. Carpenter would rather operate on the basis of prejudice and condescension than evidence.
And Mr. Carpenter would rather operate on the age-old fallacy that the quality of public schooling is directly proportional to the amount of money spent on it. The evidence, again, would plainly say that this is not the case. Spending rates per public have gone up every year, and yet we cannot say that the quality of public school education has gone up similarly. If this is a cultural problem, Mr. Carpenter, how exactly is spending more money on schools going to fix it?
And is there evidence that “the majority of the Indiana General Assembly owe their seats to voters who don’t believe in evolution”? And even if they did, is belief in evolution now a political and intellectual litmus test, like the old voting laws used to be in the south?
There are serious problems with our public schools that demand serious consideration of the evidence and serious questions to be asked. This kind of nonsense simply doesn’t help.
* Source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2006-06-20-dropout-rates_x.htm#grad
** Source:
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2006/06/22/41s_map.h25.html
Filed under: Education, High school
