Achieving ROI From Public Education

Despite leaving Alabama (and family) for Chicagoland 11+ years ago, I continue to start each day with a quick review of news about the region on AL.com. Note that my interests go well beyond SEC football rankings.

The progress of the state’s public-school system and economic-development efforts are compelling topics for me. That’s why an Oct. 19, 2016 post by Trisha Powell Crain about a recently released White House report had me grinning from ear to ear. That report ranks Alabama third in the nation for high school graduation rates (89.3%), behind only Iowa and New Jersey. Seemed like good news—until I delved deeper into that article and two others Crain later posted about recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) testing. It wasn’t a pretty picture after all.

Known as the nation’s report card, the NAEP has been administered since 1969 in multiple academic areas, including math, reading, science, and civics. It’s given to 4th, 8th, and 12th graders in states that voluntarily agree to participate. As I understand it, the most recent findings reference scores from 4th graders who took the test in 2009 and 2015, and 8th graders who took it in 2009, 2011, and 2015.

In the 2015 science assessments (which included physical, life, earth, and space sciences), Alabama’s 4th and 8th graders scored below the national average. Mississippi was the only southeastern state with lower scores.

It gets worse.

In math, Alabama’s fourth-graders ranked 52nd—dead-last in scores from all 50 states, the Department of Defense schools, and the District of Columbia. (Sadly, while Alabama 8th graders have languished at or near the bottom in NAEP math results for many years, other states with near-bottom scores have apparently been making gains.)

Given its students’ 2015 NAEP science and math scores, Alabama probably shouldn’t be high-fiving itself for achieving that third-highest graduation-rate shout-out. According to Andrew Yerbey, senior policy counsel for the conservative Alabama Policy Institute, (as quoted in Trisha Crain’s Oct. 19 article), the ranking points to a big problem. “There are way too many kids graduating with way too low scholastic achievement,” he noted. “As long as the graduation rate is high and our test scores are low, there is no reason to celebrate.” I agree with Yerbey on this issue.

How can those dreadful scores be coming from a state that’s home to several world-renowned research universities and many world-class manufacturers, including, among others, Mercedes, Honda, Hyundai, and Airbus, and their suppliers? It’s a huge question, and one every Alabama parent and business owner and/or operator should be asking. I personally know of at least one family that has already begun considering a possible move out of state for this very reason.

Enough about Alabama, though: How does your own state’s public education system stack up in preparing students for life after high school? As a strong proponent of public education, after digesting the AL.com articles, I turned to Achieve (achieve.org) for a reality check. I encourage you to do likewise.

A national advocate for improved college- and career-readiness, Achieve released a report in May 2015 on how states got their graduation rates (achieve.org/how-the-states-got-their-rates). Examining the different diploma options available to students in all 50 states, and identifying those at the college- and career-ready level, it’s an eye-opener. Reading this report and other information from Achieve, you may—or perhaps not—be surprised to learn that the educational investment in your state’s children, i.e., our workforce of the future, is not delivering on its promise.

I’ll be interested to hear your thoughts on the matter.