Dismal K-12 Education Makes Colleges Look Good

This week’s “Daily Journal” guest columnist is Jane Shaw, executive vice president of the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy.

The nonprofit organization that I head frequently criticizes North Carolina’s colleges and universities. But as many North Carolina parents know, higher education problems are small when compared to the failings of elementary and secondary education.

With all its faults, the U.S. system of higher education is still the envy of the world. (My colleague George Leef has said that he would love to have a nickel for every time he hears that phrase applied to American colleges and universities.) Foreign students flock to our universities.

In contrast, our K-12 system is famous for poor performance. While some public K-12 schools teach effectively, many others offer little of value, as evidenced by high dropout rates, poor test scores, and the growing demand for remedial instruction in universities and community colleges.

U.S. elementary and high school students consistently score below their peers in international skill tests, particularly in science and math. In the 2006 Program for International Student Assessment, for example, the U.S. ranked 17th in science and 24th in math out of 30 countries.

Why the contrast between the two sectors of education? There is one big difference: competition. The higher education system has it, and K-12, for the most part, does not.

Any economist will tell you that competition spurs improvement. Competition in education means that providers of goods and services (schools) try to attract customers (students) by making their wares more attractive than others’.

Now, some faculty members at universities cringe at calling students “customers,” as if that desgination belittles their teaching. College administrators, however, accept the fact. They compete for students. They must offer something of value to students at a cost that students can afford. When schools stop doing that, they come close to bankruptcy, as Antioch College and the New College of California recently did.

That is not the case with K-12 education.

First of all, attendance is compulsory. Second, the government can mandate which schools children attend. Families may try to exercise some choice by moving to neighborhoods with good schools, but their school district can assign their children to another location. This is an emotionally charged issue in Wake County right now. In Cary there is even grumbling about “seceding” from the county school system among parents who wish their children to attend the local schools instead of being bused elsewhere.

“Magnet” schools offer some choice, but, as the Raleigh News & Observer has pointed out, “It’s a lottery, more or less.”

A long-term effort to offer real choice resulted in the creation of charter schools (public schools that operate with some independence). But the state legislature has severely limited their number. Franklin Academy, a charter school in Wake Forest, had 1,860 applications for its 93 openings next fall. Politics is keeping the supply of charter schools from rising to meet demand.

Private elementary and secondary schools do have to compete, of course, and they do so in a market distorted against them by “free” public schools. Essentially, tax-paying families must pay twice if they send their children to private schools. As a result, only about 11 percent of all K-12 students are taught in private schools. That figure does not include the 1 million–plus homeschoolers in the country, however.

In contrast, American higher education is all about choice. The sheer number of institutions — 2,500 four-year schools and a total of more than 4,000 postsecondary schools — has no peer in any other country. These institutions fill a diverse array of niches, from traditional religion-based education to curricula emphasizing liberal activism, from majors in gender studies to genetics, and with vocational choices from golf course management to nuclear medicine technology.

These schools seek out students because (unlike K-12 students) they pay tuition. Even though taxpayers subsidize tuition at public universities, tuition is a critical funding source at both public and private schools. Students with federal financial aid carry it with them and use it like a voucher. (In K-12, additional students simply mean additional burdens on the community’s tax base.)

In sum, colleges and universities have the key ingredient that could transform K-12 education: competition. Bringing in choice would do a world of good for North Carolina’s children.