Schools Face Uphill Challenge to Improve

(CBS)  This story is part of CBS News' "Where America Stands" series, an in-depth look at where the country stands today on key topics and an outlook for the future decade.

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Despite decades of reform attempts and billions of dollars of investment, the American education system badly "needs improvement," reports CBS News Correspondent Russ Mitchell.

"It's not where it needs to be," said Andy Rotherham, co-founder of Education Sector, an education think tank. "There are too many places that aren't doing well."

The report card shows that only 34 percent of 8th graders are proficient in math, 29 percent in science and 33 percent in reading. Compared to other countries, American students score near the bottom - 21st out of 30 in science. It's even more bleak in math - they're 25th.

Americans are also giving the nation's public school system poor grades, a newly-released CBS News survey finds, with 70 percent offering marks of C, D or F.

Those in the trenches like Washington, D.C., school Chancellor Michelle Rhee say the reason isn't the kids - it's the system.

"In society there is not a particularly high regard for education," Rhee said.

The problem, educators say, is that our most talented minds head into medicine, law and technology. A teaching career is often an afterthought, given the salary.

An average elementary school teacher earns $50,000 a year. Physicians average a hundred thousand more.

Another problem is what kids are learning. Unlike most other countries that have national standards of what to teach, in the U.S., it's a state-by-state decision.

"These districts often face enormous management challenges," Rotherham said.

He said in many states, the standards are low.

"We had a public school system that served us very well in the 20th century, when the United States had an economy based on building things and moving things around," Rotherham said. "The economy has changed."

Then there's the politics of education. Tenure and unions protect even bad teachers, and with limited funds, there's always a budget battle. More money for a successful charter school, for instance, means less for public schools.

"Too often people think, everyone in education is just all about the kids," Rotherham said. "But it's an industry like any other where you have a variety of interests."

The end result: Only 70 percent of kids in this country graduate on time. In the District of Columbia, it's more like half, and it's not because the school system doesn't have any money.

"We spend more money per child than almost any other jurisdiction in this country and yet our outcomes are at the absolute bottom," Rhee said.

But Rhee thinks she may have one solution for reforming education: Treat it like any other business. Make educators accountable for their successes and failures. If you don't succeed as a principal or teacher, she wants you out.

When she arrived two and a half years ago, she inherited schools like Sousa Middle.

"It was out of control," Rhee said. "I mean, there were more children in the hallway than in classroom, all the kids had hoods on, had their earphones in, swearing at teachers."

Rhee removed the former principal and installed Dwan Jordon.

They fired 11 of 31 teachers, instituted school uniforms and Saturday school. Last year's test scores were up double-digits: 25 percent in math, 17 percent in reading.

"The kids love the school; they love being here," Jordan said. "Today our attendance rate is 98 percent."

Rhee says Sousa is the model but adds too many principals are not willing to change the status quo.

"They are, as a group, incredibly conflict-averse," Rhee said. "They just don't want people to yell at them."

So she says they keep ineffective people in the pipeline rather than putting them on notice.

The teachers union disagrees with Rhee's philosophy, saying there are already methods in place to deal with bad teachers and that tenure and other protections shouldn't be ignored.

"I get yelled at all the time," Rhee said. "People are picketing outside the office. You know, they're writing in, calling in, saying she's the worst thing that ever happened."

"It sounds like it's also a battle every day," Mitchell said.

"It is; it is absolutely," Rhee said.

But Harvard University, where Rhee got her master's degree, agrees that the key to reforming education starts at the top. This fall it will offer its first new doctoral program in 74 years in education leadership.

"What we want is to recognize that education is a business," Dean Kathy McCarthy said. "So leaders need not only a background in the education sector, but also a background in management."

The Harvard program is all about management, taught in part by professors at the business school. Harry Spence is the co-director of the program.

"Increasingly, principals are people who are really strong instructionally," Spence said. "They move into the principalship, and they're managing a complex environment. Nobody has taught them how to do that."

So Harvard will by immersing students in budgets and conflict resolution.
Because Harvard wants to attract students who would normally be swayed by higher paying careers, the program is totally free. More than 1,000 people have applied for just 25 slots.

"I think there's a real hope that in 10 years you'd see our graduates in senior roles and organizations that are making a real difference," Spence said.

If they're right, school systems will end up with better leaders who hire better teachers, and American students may finally make the grade.

[ConsciousSmith]

"Treat it like any other business. Make educators accountable for their successes and failures. If you don't succeed as a principal or teacher, she wants you out."

Statements like this, which trickle from spotlit figures like Michelle Rhee right down to the water cooler, make me crazy. What's almost NEVER talked about is what teacher "success" and "failure" really are. There's talk of "achievement" as a measure of teacher success. And there's now Obama administration rhetoric about "college and career readiness" as a measure of "achievement."

Regardless of one's position, it makes no sense even to discuss merit pay, tenure abolition, etc., etc., when we're not really talking as parents or as a nation (or even thinking, as far as I can tell) about what we want for our children. Neither high test scores nor high earning potential are anywhere near the top of my list of educational priorities for my children. Are they, parents out there, priorities for you?

Kenni Smith
Developmental Studies Center
http://devstu.org

[vanys-2009]

Back in the "old days" we started every morning with the pledge of allegiance and Lord's prayer. If nothing else it may have been a subliminal unification effort to instill some basic fundamental principles. It seems appropriate, that in these United States of America, the beginning of each school day could begin with the recital of elements of the Constitution or Bill of Rights! If our young people are exposed to these documents and principles throughout their educational careers, maybe something would stick that would encourage them to perform at their best!

[Educator36]

mn_momof3 asks what is the solution. I would say fund alternative schools for students with behavior problems instead of cutting their budgets, provide extensive technical/vocational/polytechnic schools for those not going to college, offer apprenticeship/on the job training and other specialized programs to meet individualized needs like we did in former years. Unlike what Rhee, Duncan and Jeb Bush think, children are not widgets manufactured in quality controlled environments the way businesses operate, but are human beings who go home to families, good or bad. Get rid of the notion that every student is going to graduate from a college bound high school program and go to college; stop politicizing schools and fund them properly; double teaching salaries and make education the priority for this country. It won't be cheap and tax cutting politicians will find every reason to resist these ideas because they are rich and can afford private schools for their kids or want to get votes in the next election.

[erasmus111]

One of the problems is that kids have crappy parents who don't teach them right from wrong, but the other is the fact that teachers no longer have "control" over the classroom. Big mistake letting children move about the classroom and talk. Some children may be able to learn with chaos in the room, but others can't.

[goneagain09]

Throwing money at the schools is not the answer. Students have to want to learn and improve themselves. Growing up as a child in the 60's 70's, I believe I had a learning disability, English and math are like reading a different language just learned basic in each. Believe that it was a love of reading that helped me to be a better student. I would spend hours studying, was glad my parents made me ( even though I hated it at the time).

My sister is often a sub teacher at schools in our area( not a teacher ). She said they really should put up cameras in each class so parents can see how their little angels act in class. She said some days she could do nothing with the class, they were so bad, would have to send a student to the office to get the principal to deal with the unruly students.

My parents were always firm but fair and loving, stressed the importance of learning, to have a better future. When it was school time it was, sit down, shut up, and pay attention.

[mn_momof3]

What goneagain09 said was well put also. Our school district in MN has cameras on the buses, so why not add them to the classroom as well, and better yet, not let anyone know about their installation, although I don't think this would be "politically" or unfortunately legally allowed without informing people.

I do think it could open parents' eyes, but not sure about the students. Knowing how todays disrespectful generation gets off on being class clown, students may see it as another way of competition to see who can put on the naughtiest/nasty show for the cameras. So, in addition to the cameras, there has to be harsher consequences for the misbehavior and disrespect of teachers by the principal, yes the principal and not these extra created positions of "behavior techs" to handle unruly students. All students get disciplined with in school these days is they simply get what my school district calls a "referral". All this is is a written notice sent home to parents, and the kids stays in for recess. This may have worked in the 70's, but not with today's students simply because today's students don't care.

[Educator36]

Why doesn't anyone ask the teachers? As an educator for 36 years the number one problem with schools is the disruptive, defiant, disrepsectful students. Try teaching class for one hour in the average American classroom before you blame teachers. Secondly, No Child Left Behind and Performance Pay means teaching to the test. European countries have no such tests. Lastly, education is not a business. A business rejects shipments of inferior raw materials, i.e. a bakery boasting it's cakes are made of the finest ingredients will reject a shipment of tainted flower. Schools have to take who they get. I'll take Permormance Pay if I can select my students like an ice cream manufacturer can decide which shipment of berries to accept or turn away because of their freshness/ripeness. If they were forced to take any ingredients they received to make their ice cream they would be out of business.

[mn_momof3]

Wow, Educator36, you might have just posted the most intelligent, accurate answer to the problem in a very unique but dead on analogy. May I ask what you think a good viable solution to the problem would be?

[tuathadedannan]

You can't say that! What do you think your doing? This is no place to let the cat out of the bag! You will undo years of "more computers will fix this" and "better teachers (read: more entertaining)" messages from politicians. Oh the humanity!

[dontknowitall]

Ya think? Take away the computers,calculators and cash registers and the youth of today would be left in a hopeless world.

[geneonlbk]

Alas, we are a social experiment that is failing. Capitalism works only for those who are at the top. The idea of a completely commercialized society existing on the mythology of buy-buy-buy has proven to have diminishing returns for its population. We are a society that has sensed our structural failing too late to resurrect ourselves before the fall. There is little point to even trying to educate anyone who is glued to a TV, cell phone, I-Pod, Game Boy, and all the other mind-numbing baubles that pass our time aimlessly. We are Homer's Lotus Eaters.

[Foxfire55]

I don't think the schools need improvement. I think the kids do.

[cidaia]

A voucher system would be the equivalent of eradicating the idea of universal education. Those who can and will make sure their children will get educated, would be freed of the burden of having to do so through today's loser schools with their loser teachers.

The disadvantages that I see:

1. the entire idea of universal education is based on the idea that we need ALL our students educated. This means we need to stop looking at PARENTS as the vehicle through which education happens. We need to have a class of professionals who are paid to take responsibility for educating all the children. (We could call them "teachers" or something.)

2. The other problem with vouchers is that if we don't have the belief that ALL children need to be educated - that is, if middle class parents whine and complain about the burdens of supporting the loser kids - then what is to stop the elite from whining and complaining about the burdens of supporting middle class kids (from THEIR perspective, THESE are the loser kids, because their parents didn't work hard enough or accumulate adequate resources to take care of their own kids).

So the problem with vouchers is that it undermines the ideas that are at the foundation of universal education.