Report Grades States on Effectiveness of Schools in College and Work-Force Preparation
Chronicle of Higher Education
"Many states systematically paint a much rosier picture of how their schools are doing than actually is the case," the report says.
It also found that many states "have done a mediocre job of establishing rigorous standards in key subject areas," which further complicates efforts to hold their schools accountable for performance.
"If companies were run like many education systems, they wouldn't last a week," Thomas J. Donohue, the chamber's president, said in a news release announcing the report's key findings.
The report, "Leaders and Laggards: A State-by-State Report Card on Educational Effectiveness," was jointly prepared by John D. Podesta, who is chief executive of the progressive Center for American Progress and a former chief of staff for President Bill Clinton, and Frederick M. Hess, director of education policy at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. The authors did not undertake any new research, but instead pulled together a long list of studies on elementary and secondary education, and used those studies' results to assign states grades for how well their schools are preparing students.
The report examined education systems through lenses that reflect the chamber's business orientation, looking not just at academic outcomes but also whether education systems are innovative, flexible, and fiscally responsible. Its stated bottom-line goal was determining "each state's return on its educational investments."
In evaluating how well states are preparing students for college and the work force, the report looked at the share of their high-school students who are passing Advanced Placement tests in core subjects, the percentage of students who graduate from high school in four years with a regular diploma, and the percentage of ninth graders who complete high school in four years and then go on to college.
Grading on a curve, the report gave A's for college and work-force preparation to 10 states: Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, and Virginia. It gave F's to another 10: Alabama, Arizona, Delaware, Hawaii, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, and Tennessee.
Among its recommendations, the report said states and school districts should evaluate schools of education and other providers of teacher training by measuring what effect their graduates have on students' academic achievement. The report cited programs that allow high-school students to obtain college credits as examples of the sort of innovations that should be embraced by people who set education policy.