US education: a grave failure of national management & character

Not only is the management of US corporations currently in sharp decline. Studies show that US education also puts the future in peril. Yet there is no sign that politicians will put aside partisan squabbling to deal with a national emergency.  Short-term political point-scoring wins continues to be more important than long-term national interest.

At best, this is being discussed, if at all, as an issue of leadership, i.e. more talk. The reality is that we are looking a grave failure of national management. We need less talk and more effective action.

As an article in the The Atlantic showed recently, inputs have rapidly increased, without a proportionate increase in outputs. Per student, the US now spends more than all but three other countries—Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Norway—on elementary and secondary education, but with poor results.

Even the best state in the US--Massachusetts--is behind sixteen other countries. Moreover relatively privileged students do not compete favorably with average students in other well-off countries: for example in Illinois, the percentage of kids with a college-educated parent who are highly skilled at math is lower than the percentage of such kids among all students in Iceland, France, Estonia, and Sweden.

Despite these disastrous outputs, the political focus is still on inputs—such as how much money we are pouring into the system or how small our class sizes are—and wind up with little to show for it. Since the early 1970s, the US has doubled the amount of money it spends per pupil nationwide, but the high-schoolers’ reading and math scores have barely budged.

Where is the courage to face the brutal truth and to do something about it? What has happened to the national character? Can we find the moral fiber to deal with an issue of common concern?

THE LATEST SIGN OF DECLINE

The New York Times reports that students in Shanghai have surprised experts by outscoring their counterparts in dozens of other countries, in reading as well as in math and science, according to the results of a respected exam.

The results reflect the culture of education in Shanghai, including greater emphasis on teacher training and more time spent on studying rather than extracurricular activities like sports.

“Schools work their students long hours every day, and the work weeks extend into the weekends,” it said.

Chinese students spend less time than American students on athletics, music and other activities not geared toward success on exams in core subjects. Also, in recent years, teaching has rapidly climbed up the ladder of preferred occupations in China, and salaries have risen. In Shanghai, the authorities have undertaken important curricular reforms, and educators have been given more freedom to experiment.

OFFICIAL REACTION

“Wow, I’m kind of stunned, I’m thinking Sputnik,” said Chester E. Finn Jr., who served in President Ronald Reagan’s Department of Education, referring to the groundbreaking Soviet satellite launching.

“We have to see this as a wake-up call,” Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said. “I know skeptics will want to argue with the results, but we consider them to be accurate and reliable, and we have to see them as a challenge to get better,” he added. “The United States came in 23rd or 24th in most subjects. We can quibble, or we can face the brutal truth that we’re being out-educated.”

Yet there is no sign that politicians will put aside partisan squabbling to deal with a national emergency.  Short-term political point-scoring wins continue to be more important than long-term national interest. Words are not followed by action.

SPECIFIC RESULTS

In math, the Shanghai students performed in a class by themselves, outperforming second-place Singapore, which has been seen as an educational superstar in recent years. The average math scores of American students put them below 30 other countries.

PISA scores are on a scale, with 500 as the average. Two-thirds of students in participating countries score between 400 and 600. On the math test last year, students in Shanghai scored 600, in Singapore 562, in Germany 513, and in the United States 487.

In reading, Shanghai students scored 556, ahead of second-place Korea with 539. The United States scored 500 and came in 17th, putting it on par with students in the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and several other countries.

In science, Shanghai students scored 575. In second place was Finland, where the average score was 554. The United States scored 502 — in 23rd place — with a performance indistinguishable from Poland, Ireland, Norway, France and several other countries.

The testing in Shanghai was carried out by an international contractor. Read the full NYT report here

COLLEGE EDUCATION FACES SIMILAR ISSUES

The cost of a US college education is ridiculous. The Economist points out: “College fees have for decades risen faster than Americans’ ability to pay them. Median household income has grown by a factor of 6.5 in the past 40 years, but the cost of attending a state college has increased by a factor of 15 for in-state students and 24 for out-of-state students. The cost of attending a private college has increased by a factor of more than 13 (a year in the Ivy League will set you back $38,000, excluding bed and board). Academic inflation makes medical inflation look modest by comparison.”

Yet when college presidents are challenged to show in what respects rising costs had generated a better educational value, no answers are given. The attitude is the standard bureaucratic one:  "You must pay for what we make."

College presidents are nevertheless quite effective in looking after themselves. Thirty college presidents now earn more than $1 million in salary and benefits. None did in 2004.

BOTTOM LINE: RADICALLY DIFFERENT MANAGEMENT

The same debilitating incapacity to manage effectively that afflicts US corporations thus also cripples the US education system. In this way, we are mortgaging the future. The current problems of the economy are harbingers of worse things that are to come unless there is basic change.

What to do? We don't need more leadership speeches. We don't need more inputs or resources. We need the courage, the character, the moral fiber and the smarts to implement radically different management.

To learn what is involved, read my synthesis of recent thinking on the subject, or read  The Power of Pull by John Hagel, John Seely Brown and Lang Davison, or Reorganize for Resilience by Ranjay Gulati, or my own new book, The Leader's Guide to Radical Management: Reinventing the Workplace for the 21st Century radically different management.

Comments

[Steve Barnett]

I couldn’t agree more Steve about the need to change the way education is managed and operated.

Maybe with criticism of Business Schools breaking into the popular media we have a potential tipping point.

We need education managers and educators to radically change the organisational experience - that learning context - from individualistic to collaborative: to radically re-enact education organisation and process to transform the detail of the way colleagues and students communicate with each other; the way that they generate shared meaning; the way they produce and implement organisational knowledge; their experience of collaboration.

Particularly, they must counter students’ (and colleagues) deeply engrained instrumental approach to their work by radically redesigning tasks and measures to specifically reward collaborative behaviour (as mutually assessed by team members). The aim and effect of this is to motivate teams to move beyond the usual fake-team division of tasks: to produce graduates with exceptional “intuition”; who rapidly become project leaders with exceptionally engaged project teams; who achieve in 6-8 months what conventionally taught graduates take two years to achieve.
For more detail see “Wanted: Communication Educators for Management Revolution” (http://tutaetoko.blogspot.com/2010/12/wanted-communication-educators-for.html, prompted by your draft article "The Death and Reinvention of Management".

[Steve Barnett]

“Wanted: Communication Educators for Management Revolution” (http://tutaetoko.blogspot.com/2010/12/wanted-communication-educators-for.html

[Monique Hodgkinson]

As a parent of two children that attend a small rural high school (graduating class sizes of approximately 24 students), I have had the opportunity to offer assistance in many roles over the years in our town's schools. I've known many of the kids since they were in pre-school, and have watched them grow up.

What I see as a major failing for our schools is that somehow many of the kids have a disconnect about putting in the effort now leads to rewards later. This is not all of the kids, but it seems that the majority don't quite see it. From my perspective most of the teachers have been excellent. However, if the kids don't have the maturity or aren't willing to put the effort in, there isn't much that the teachers can do. One cause may be that we teach academics, but do not necessarily teach children effective study habits. Lack of organizational skills affects many students.

In spite of spending increasing since the 1970s, it is very apparent to me that in our community our schools are grossly underfunded. This may be part of the problem. By not adequately funding public school education, we send the children a subtle message to the children about the value of education. It is not good enough to just talk the talk, you also have to walk the walk.

If we want to improve our educational system, it will take money, involvement, and commitment from students, parents, educators, and governmental agencies

[Steve Denning]

Monique

Thanks for your comment. I agree that it would be wrong to blame the teachers.

I would also hesitate before blaming the kids. No one learns anything if they are bored. So if the kids are bored, we need to rethink the whole approach to education so that they find it interesting, exciting, something they can't do without. I've written about what this would involve in yesterday's post: http://bit.ly/gQZoG1

There may be individual communities where funding is the problem, but overall, nationwide, the problem is not lack of funding, but different management of existing resources.

Steve

[Steve Denning]

Steve
Great post! I've highlighted it on Twitter.
Steve

[Bruce T. Smith, MD]

Character education has been the buzz word for awhile. The Virtue's Project has been an option for fifteen years now with little acknowledgement in the States. Determining best practices is an art in and of itself. Where to go for solutions? Trago

[Steve Denning]

Bruce

Thanks for the suggestion on the Virtues Project. Do you know of any schools either in the US or elsewhere that are drawing on this approach?

Steve

[Nicolae Cuta]

Did anybody asked the pupils from Shanghai how happy/satisfied are they about attending school? Because if they aren't happy/satisfied as students, they will stop learning as soon they will finish compulsory school, no matter their actual score. While a student that loves to go to school will come back later as (young) adult to complete his/her education any-time he/she consider necessary/opportune.

[Jane Middleton]

The failure in US public education is a cultural thing. Americans do not respect education. They just want the diploma. They are not the same thing.

Education requires hard work. Americans do not like to work hard. American high school kids spend so much time on computer games, social activities (chatting, texting, shopping), and part time jobs (to fund their consumerism). Where can they find time to study?

And American parents do not supervise their children's home work. Don't tell me that the parents work 60 hours a week. Before Netflix was available, there was not a single time when I went to a video store that I did not see adults with a stack of rental movies in hand. If they spent so much time watching movies, how could they find time to supervise their children? Now with Netflix, the parents can be glued to TV from 6 pm to midnight and never run out of things to watch.

I was a poor kid. And my parents said, 'Because we are poor, education is your ONLY way to improve your life.' When I ranked number two in my class of 63 students on a monthly test, my mother slapped my face, saying, "How do you dare to come home. You have slipped from number one to number two." I agree, she was too strict. But you can see the high expectation my parents had on me. Being poor was NO excuse for failure to excel on study. Bill Gates recently said so too. But most Americans believe poor kids definitely make poor students. There is no CAN-DO spirit in the US.

Americans believe money can buy everything, especially education and health. They couldn't be more wrong.

[Jeff Fessler, 2011 Palm Beach County Teacher of the Year]

Steve,
I was surprised that your example of China as a model of success highlighted an intense focus on academics at the exclusion of everything else. Actually, there is something much more interesting and groundbreaking happening in China and other Asian countries.

While historically they have have produced book-smart students who spent the better part of their waking hours in school or studying for high-stakes tests, they found that their high school and college graduates offered little in the way of creative problem solving or developing innovative ideas. Chinese, Singaporean, and South Korean companies often were forced to hire their R & D people from America, a country known for its creative thinkers.

But starting in 2001, China changed its thinking about education. The government realized that in order to produce creative and innovative thinkers, they had to rethink their education model that focused on national standards, high-stakes tests, and a top down model of management. They retooled their curriculum, which now features far fewer tests, a more holistic approach to educating children, and far more opportunities for students to learn about the arts and culture.

Of course it is extremely ironic that as China makes this exciting transition that will produce students that are ready for the 21st century, the U.S. races backwards to embrace the old system that China abandoned!

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