For the first time, China has participated in the administration of the Program for International Assessment (PISA) achievement tests.  To the surprise of many, and the consternation of some, students in Shanghai scored a trifecta, outpacing counterparts in a 65-nation field in reading, math, and science.  An executive summary of the testing program, conducted under the auspices of the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and administered to 15-year-old students, can be accessed, here.  A NBC Nightly News video reporting on the tests can be viewed, here.
 
In the area of reading literacy, the summary reports: "Korea and Finland are the highest performing OECD countries, with mean scores of 539 and 536 points, respectively.  However the partner economy Shanghai-China outperforms them by a significant margin, with a mean score of 556."  U.S. students scores fell near the middle of the pack, while Mexico's scores were the lowest of the group.  Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Korea were the top performers in mathematics, and Shanghai, Finland, Hong Kong, and Singapore topped the charts in science.  U.S. students scored significantly below average in mathematics, and not significantly different from the average score in science, making for a very mediocre overall set of results.  

Previous administrations of the PISA tests have drawn technical criticism from a number of U.S. educational researchers.  The most recent study, however, appears to have addressed the caveats.  As reported by the New York Times, former commissioner of the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics Mark Schneider, himself a former critic of the tests, expressed overall satisfaction with the latest PISA.  "The technical side of this was well regulated, the sampling was O.K., and there was no evidence of cheating," he said, adding, "China is taking education very seriously.  The work ethic is amazingly strong."

Another past cricism of the PISA tests was that they tended to measure rote learning rather than higher-order thinking skills.  But the most recent tests have been said to measure imagination, creativity, and thinking "outside the box." 

President Obama reacted to the PISA results, comparing their impact to that of the former Soviet Union beating out the United States in the race to launch the first satellite into space.  "Fifty years later, our generation's Sputnik moment is back," noted the President, adding, "America is in danger of falling behind."  After learning of the test results, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan was quoted as saying, "We have to see this as a wake-up call.  The United States came in 23rd or 24th in most subjects. We can quibble, or we can face the brutal truth that we're being out-educated."

Responding to the PISA results via Twitter, NYU Professor Diance Ravitch delivered a terse personal assessment: "Lesson from PISA: NCLB failed."  Her conclusion may be somewhat unfair given that students in Shanghai receive some 40 percent more hours of instruction than their U.S. counterparts.  Moreover, the U.S. students who participated in PISA were already in 4th grade when the federal No Child Left Behind Act entered its first full year of implementation.

An op-ed piece penned by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute's Checker B. Finn, Jr., which appeared in the December 8, 2010 edition of the Wall Street Journal can be viewed, here.

It's been some time since we last ran this particular column.  So, to make up for the hiatus, the E-Mailer provides two items for your probable dismay, one from Southern California, and the other from the Bay Area. 

Los Angeles Downtown News.com reports a story featuring the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA).  The museum, which is gearing up for a major street art exhibit, decided it would make good sense to have one of its exterior walls painted by...you guessed it...a street artist.  So it commissioned a prominent Italian artist who goes by the name of Blu, to create the work.
 
As the article reports: "The paint was hardly dry on the mural, which covered the entire north-facing wall of MOCA's Geffen Contemporary with depictions of wooden caskets draped in dollar bills, when the museum literally whitewashed the piece."  That's right.  The museum paid an artist to paint a mural on one of its walls, and then proceeded to paint over it as soon as the work was completed.
 
Why the apparent exercise in futility?  If you look at the article's accompanying photos, you'll see that Blu's mural consisted of a series of wooden coffins draped by dollar bills.  While such a crude political statement is bound to be offensive to some under any circumstances, the fact that the wall upon which the mural was painted faces the Veteran's Administration healthcare building, didn't help.  Nor did the fact that the mural is only "steps away" from a memorial dedicated to Japanese Americans who fought in the Second World War.  
 
Blu was said to have been incensed over the whitewashing of his work, and was reported to have been seen taking photos of his mural being laid to rest.  (Would anyone care to take bets that a lawsuit is in the offing?)
 
Our second head-shaker concerns a battle between San Francisco and San Mateo counties.  To help boost local revenues, San Francisco is contemplating the imposition of a $6 daily toll to be levied upon commuters entering and exiting from the south during morning and afternoon rush hours.  As reported by MercuryNews.com, "Under the plan, all drivers would pay $3 upon entering or exiting San Francisco from the south via highways and major local streets from 6:30 to 9:30 a.m. and another $3 from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. The tolls would be collected electronically and capped at $6 a day, with San Francisco officials controlling revenues estimated at up to $80 million annually."

Municipal, civic, and business leaders from San Mateo County have expressed strong opposition to the imposition of any such plan.  But if a letter writing campaign and other public expressions of condemnation should fall short, they're prepared to resort to good old-fashioned sandbox retaliation by doubling down and socking a $12 toll upon San Franciscans entering San Mateo County from the north.  As Daly City Councilman David Canepa put it: "If we're going to have to bear the pain, then those in San Francisco are going to have to bear the pain."

You can read it and weep, here.  Whatever happened to e pluribus unum?

Public schools are about to face a moment of profound fiscal reckoning.  As Andrew J. Rotherham notes in a must-read Time Magazine op-ed column, "...when federal stimulus funds run out in 2011, states - and, by extension, schools - will tumble off a fiscal cliff, and even an economic upturn won't bring state funding back up to where it was a few years ago.  The title of the article is, "Is the Golden Age of Education Spending Over?"

Mr. Rotherham observes that between 1970 and 2007, national spending on K-12 public schools increased - in current dollar terms - from $228 billion, to $583 billion.  He then adds, "True, some of the increase can be traced back to growing enrollments, better programs, and improved services for special-education and other students, but much of the increase is just a lot of spending without a lot to show for it.  And given all the various pressures on state budgets (including our aging population, health care costs and the substantial obligations states and school districts owe for pensions and benefits), the golden age of school spending is likely coming to an end."

California will be no exception.  With a current state budget deficit of $6.1 billion, and a projected fiscal year 2011-2012 deficit of $19 billion, the Office of the Legislative Analyst foresees a $2 billion reduction in Proposition 98 funding for public schools.  And while the LAO predicts an improving economic picture in the years that follow, both minimum Proposition 98 funding and property tax revenues aren't expected to reach pre-recession levels before 2015-16. 

With draconian budget cuts looming, we are likely to see the survival of the politically fittest.  A preview was provided late last month when the Los Angeles Unified School District took action to lay off some 1,000 school-site employees, none of whom was a teacher.  With deeper budget cuts in the offing, not only will internecine competition within the public education sector continue, but the education establishment will find itself challenged by other vested interests including social services, public health, and corrections.

The political jockeying between various public sector interests vying to minimize funding reductions is likely to draw increased attention to fiscal transparency and productivity, areas in which (as the Rotherham article contends) public education doesn't do particularly well.  With test scores largely stagnant after seven full years of No Child Left Behind, and an additional $100 billion of federal stimulus funding, taxpayers around the country are going to want to know what they're getting for their money.

One upshot of the new fiscal scrutiny I see on the horizon is that the public will discover the cost of public education to be considerably higher than previously believed.  The Rotherham article mentions a piece of research conducted by the Cato Institute's Adam Schaeffer, in which the analyst "...looked at a sample of school districts from all over the country [and] found their actual spending was, on average, 44% more than the officially stated amount."  As Mr. Rotherham explains, "Items such as capital costs, meaning buildings and renovations, frequently are considered off-budget so that they are not reflected in the per-pupil spending school districts and states report publicly." 

A possible corollary to such a development is that the private school community may have an opportunity to invite re-consideration of education tax credit legislation by previously reluctant legislators.  A carefully crafted education tax credit arrangement could provide an incentive for donor-directed giving that would benefit both public and private schools.  In Pennsylvania, public policy researchers have made a strong case that for every dollar of credits extended under that state's education tax credit arrangement, the state saves at least $1.89.

In every crisis there is opportunity - a chance to make lemonade out of lemons.  No one wants to see our public education system fail.  And those of us in the private school community wish to preserve and expand access to our schools.  Despite the posturing of some, those two desires are not mutually incompatible. Stay tuned!

Ron Reynolds