Education Matters:

I cannot remember a year’s end with such dire predictions for the year ahead. The news seems to go from bad to worse with a crumbling economy leading the way and threatening to invade every aspect of our lives.

But in the midst of all the frightening projections, some of which go well beyond 2009, there is always a basis to salvage some hope. The Great Depression of the 1930s, which is being brought up more and more these days, was as much about people’s state of mind as it was the harsh realities of the period.

We learned from that period that fear and panic added fuel to the economic meltdown of our country. But in the end it was our resilience and abiding faith that pulled us out of it. From an economic standpoint, I teach that World War II was primarily responsible for bringing us out of this difficult period, but I’m more inclined to believe that it was the character of our people that ultimately prevailed. That’s a good lesson to teach and a good thought to keep in mind in the year(s) ahead. If hope is to compete with hard times, perhaps we’ll all need to look a little harder for the good news in the midst of all the bad.

After seven years of No Child Left Behind there is an answer to George W. Bush’s question, “Is our children learning?” The answer is no, they aren’t. Leaders in the science of testing tell us that scores always rise when high stakes are put on a particular test. When kids are asked to answer problems that use a particular question format and cover only a narrow range of skills, their scores do tend to rise. Whether or not they actually know more is another question.

The idea of “shaming schools into improvement,” a phrase used by Susan Neuman, a former top Bush education official, has hopefully run its failed course. The enormous investment of time and money put into this teach-to-the-test program can be spent elsewhere or saved altogether. That would be good news for everyone.

And speaking of saving money, here’s a few ideas: Revoke the recent Congressional pay raises and if not, revoke the Congressmen who accept it. Cut back or curtail altogether the generous expense accounts that California legislators receive (which are far above the other 49 states).