George Will?s latest Newsweek column offers generally high marks to U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan?s ideas for improving the nation?s schools.
While others will find good reasons to object to some of Duncan?s ideas and statements, Will?s columns emphasizes some important points:
America?s per-pupil spending is higher than that of the 34 OECD nations except for Luxembourg. ?Students in Estonia and Poland,? Duncan says, ?perform at roughly the same level as those in the U.S., even though Estonia and Poland spend less than half as much per student.? But many higher-performing countries emphasize higher teacher salaries rather than smaller class sizes.
Although teachers? unions are eager to shrink class sizes, thereby increasing the demand for more dues-paying teachers, Duncan knows there is no strong correlation between smaller class sizes and increased learning?other than when teaching reading in grades K through three.
