The latest column from Newsweek?s Robert J. Samuelson suggests that school reform efforts are doomed to failure as long as they avoid the key issue of student motivation.
Samuelson?s ideas make for interesting reading, especially his assessment of previous reforms:
Standard explanations of this meager progress fail. Too few teachers? Not really. From 1970 to 2008, the student population increased 8 percent while the number of teachers rose 61 percent. The student-teacher ratio has fallen from 27 to 1 in 1955 to 15 to 1 in 2007. Are teachers ill paid? Perhaps, but that?s not obvious. In 2008 the average teacher earned $53,230; two full-time teachers married to each other and making average pay would rank among the richest 20 percent of households (2008 qualifying income: $100,240). Maybe more preschool would help. Yet the share of 3- and 4-year-olds in preschool has rocketed from 11 percent in 1965 to 53 percent in 2008.
Want some other ideas for reform? The John Locke Foundation is happy to oblige.
