Latest NEA School Report is Absurd
Today, on NPR, I heard my state of Arizona getting bashed by some young reporter at the local affiliate based on Arizona's rankings in the latest NEA state rankings. So, I thought I would check the report out myself. The cover of the report tells us what we should expect to find:
This report is an update of data from NEA Research's report, Rankings & Estimates: Rankings of the States 2003 and Estimates of School Statistics 2004, based on the latest information provided from state departments of education. NEA Research collects, analyzes, and maintains data on issues and trends affecting the nation's public education systems and their employees.
OK, so lets open the report and see what statistics the NEA thinks are the best measures of public education. Here are all the stats in the report, in the order they are reported (presumably their importance):
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How much, on average, did teachers in each state earn per year?
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How many students were enrolled in each state?
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How many teachers were working in each state?
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What was the student"“teacher ratio in each state?
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How much money, on average, did each state spend per student?
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How much money did each state spend for operating schools, including salaries, books, heating buildings, and so on?
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How much money did each state spend in total for schools, including operating expenses, capital outlay, and interest on school debt?
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How much revenue did school districts receive from state governments?
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How much revenue did school districts receive from local governments?
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What were school districts' total revenues?
Thats it. That is the entire sum total of performance metrics they have for states and their schools. So, what's missing? How about any dang measure of student learning or performance! I know that the NEA wants to criticize every test out there, and in fact resists standardized testing at every turn, but is it too much to think that we might measure the quality of education by the, um, quality of education, and not by how much the employees make?
To be fair, the NEA does talk about NAEP test data on their web site, to the extent that they point out that some test scores are improving (they don't mention that this is improving off a disastrously low base). This NEA web site section on student performance reminds me a lot of the environmental protection section on the Dow Chemical web site -- it's there because it's important to public relations but its not really a topic that dominates their priorities. I have a related post here that fisks the ideas for improvement on this NEA page, but if you don't want to read that post suffice it to say that they boil down to 1) spending more money; 2) hiring more teachers; 3) paying teachers more money ; 4) testing less or putting less emphasis on tests and measurable performance; and 5) more certification and protecting the guild.
Look, I don't begrudge the NEA's role as the union and collective-bargaining agent of the teachers, and as such, they should be very concerned with salary levels (more on that in a minute). However, the NEA and their supporters constantly try to piously position the NEA as not a union - oh no - but as a group primarily interested in the quality of education. I hope this report and its contents effectively dispels that myth once and for all. The NEA today as an institution cares no more about the quality of education than the UAW cared about the quality of GM cars in the 70's (by the way, I am careful to say the NEA as an institution-- many individual teachers care a lot).