Myth Busting

In Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud and the Attack on America’s Schools, David Berliner and Bruce Biddle say many of the charges about public education are simplistic, misleading or wrong. Their findings:

Myth: Student achievement test scores have shown a decline in student learning.
In fact, many standardized tests show modest gains. Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores did decline somewhat between 1963 and 1975, when a heterogeneous rather than an elite population began taking the test. Since then, SAT scores remained stable for the white middle class and have steadily increased for minority students.

Myth: American schools fail in comparative studies of student achievement.
Many countries in Asia and Europe use stiff national exams to sort out the students who will receive university preparation. These are the young people who are tested. Cultural differences are large, also, since many American teens have after-school sports, lessons, and jobs, unlike those in many other countries. In college, American students perform equally well with their counterparts in other countries.

Myth: America spends more money on education than other countries.
In per-pupil spending for kindergarten through 12th grade, the United States ranks ninth among 16 industrialized nations, after Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Japan, Denmark, Austria, Germany, and Canada. When higher education is included, the United States ties with Canada and the Netherlands, behind Sweden. This is primarily because a much larger proportion of Americans are enrolled in college than in other countries.

Myth: Young people are not as smart as they once were.
The mean IQ scores for white Americans—the only group for which long-term data is available—have risen each year for the past 60 years. Today’s youth probably average about 15 points higher than their grandparents.

Myth: Costs in education have skyrocketed wastefully.
Expenditures per pupil did rise 36 percent from 1981 to 1991. But it was not through large raises for teachers, who saw only modest increases. Salaries for administrators and staff made up only 4.5 percent of the total. Much of the increase in costs came from more spending on social services, more students with special needs such as bilingual education, and more free or subsidized lunches.—Sarah Auffret