The board of the State Teachers Retirement System (STRS) of Ohio told members last month that it could not rely on a nine percent return on investment to fund future retirement benefits. The implication is that the board will continue to rely on a long-term return of eight percent.

While that eight percent might seem ridiculous given the vast losses in the stock market, it turns out that just about all public pension funds depend on that rate. It also turns out that public pensions need a rate of return that is much higher-by about one-third-than the comparable figure for private pension funds, which generally calculate growth at a long-term average rate of about six percent.

Why the difference? According to a pension-fund analyst at the Center for Retirement Growth at Boston College, public pension funds generally expect wage growth to be higher for their members than the managers of private pension funds. “The private sector has a little more expectation of trying to keep on top of costs,” Jean-Pierre Aubry told The Gadfly.

Getting that higher rate of return means gambling, according to Jay Greene, the chairman of the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas. But, in a Gadfly interview, Greene pointed out that, because public pension funds such as the STRS are guaranteed by the government they are essentially gambling with taxpayers’ dollars.

An eight percent return may sound perfectly reasonable to some, he said. “The trouble is we don’t know the future will resemble the past. Will the next century look like the last century? We can look over the world and see markets that vary widely. There’s no way to know looking at the average return in the recent past.”

“We’re investing with considerable risk as current events show,” he said. “Japan has had 30 years of no returns. It’s not inconceivable.”

Not making that eight percent is huge, especially in a down market. Boston College’s Aubry was co-author of a report in March that calculated the aggregate assets for state and local pensions have dropped $1.3 trillion since the peak of the market in October 2007. The current level is $1.6 trillion below the expected level based on an assumption of an eight-percent return. Further, the center estimates that, nationally, pension funds need $270 billion in extra contributions over the next four years, and then more than $100 billion extra annually for the following 20 years.

Greene said the market, however, does tell us what the risk-free return should be and that is the rate on U.S. Treasury bonds. They are now at about four percent and, long-term, are much closer to the six-percent general rate on which private pension funds are based.

Assuming a four-percent return, a teacher pension fund that would have been 70-percent funded at eight percent would drop to 44-percent funded. Teachers, school districts, and/or taxpayers would either have to make up the difference or have a very serious discussion about how much less than 100 percent of salary a realistic pension should provide.

Some critics might argue that the Treasury rate is too conservative but Greene argues that the only way to get a higher return is by increasing taxpayers’ risk. Of course, over the last year or so, pensions have lost big. During all of 2008, the STRS, for example, lost 29 percent of its value.

The creaky nature of the pension funds isn’t new. Public pension funds are generally considered in OK shape when their assets are roughly 80 percent of liabilities. But generous pension outlays have been so steep (average public pensions far exceed private pensions) that in 2007, well before the financial meltdown, roughly 40 percent of the major teacher pension plans, nationally, were short of future cash needs, according to Greene.

The STRS board warned bluntly at its March meeting that the fund might not be able to meet future obligations without substantial changes such as teachers working longer, an increase in contributions, and alterations to how benefits are calculated.

Lawmakers in more than half the states are considering changes to their pension funds. New Mexico recently hiked employee contributions and required new workers to work longer before retiring. And, in New Jersey, the governor said that he has to balance the state’s obligations to its faltering public pension funds against state services such as education and health care, according the Philadelphia Inquirer. The teachers’ fund alone was short $14 billion last June.

Perhaps echoing Ohio’s future, a New Jersey official told the newspaper, “I just don’t see how the state can raise the revenues to make those kinds of payments. It’s depressing.”

Detroit is probably our most battered city. For 40 years, numerous forces—the 1968 riots, population shifts, poor political leadership, the decline of the auto industry, and so much more—have taken an unprecedented toll on what was once America’s fourth largest city and arguably among the most vibrant urban areas in the country.

I spent a week there last year, learning more about its history and challenges and came away very sad and not so hopeful. Beyond the depressing figures (unemployment, crime, foreclosures), there were other, more palpable signs of distress—I had never seen a downtown area so uninhabited at 2pm on a weekday. (Recently, two national magazines—one from each side of the political spectrum—have done very good, long stories on these troubles, and I highly recommend both: Weekly Standard and Rolling Stone.)

So when you add all of these problems on top of the typical challenges of major urban school systems, no one could be faulted for predicting trouble in Detroit’s schools. But things are even worse.

Last year, the Council of Great City Schools produced a scathing report pointing to DPS’s deficiencies in achievement, instruction, purchasing, accounting, facilities, data, and more. Because of continued problems the superintendent was fired and the governor installed an emergency financial manager. And things continue to deteriorate—this is a good example.

I don’t know how things are going to play out, but I suspect that there’s a better than even chance that DPS will require a major intervention, whether it’s because the system can’t make payroll, the school board asks for substantial outside assistance, or something else.

A quick infusion of cash won’t solve things, nor will better management. The system is too low performing, has too many empty buildings, is losing too many students, and is short of too much money to merely bounce back. To be successful in the long run, Detroit needs a new type of public school system.

The post-Katrina New Orleans experience showed that no one had a ready plan for constructing the urban school system of the future. Local leaders had to improvise and the federal government, support organizations, and foundations helped in targeted ways but certainly lacked a comprehensive plan. We shouldn’t find ourselves in such a predicament again.

So here’s my humble recommendation to Secretary Duncan and the leaders of the nation’s biggest foundations: assign a couple of your smartest people to a new skunk works operation. Their duty: come up with a playbook should a major intervention become necessary.

The team shouldn’t be constrained by current programs, priorities, politics, etc. They should just figure out the best plan for dealing with an urban system on the brink.

Hopefully, DPS will turn itself around and this playbook will never be needed. In that case, a bunch of smart people spent some time thinking about a very worthwhile issue—the urban public school system of the future. But if things do deteriorate, these plans would prove invaluable.

Detroit skyline photograph from Paul Turgeon on Flickr

The Cincinnati Enquirer has been running a powerful series of articles about the troubles facing that city’s generous public pension systems. The newspaper’s editorial board says enough is enough:

Long-term change is needed. Pension benefits for current retirees and those near retirement cannot and should not be changed. But new work rules can and should be established for younger workers and new hires. That means higher deductions and contributions on health plans, longer service for pension eligibility and a moving away from guaranteed payment plans and toward investment contribution systems such as those found in the private sector.

The Enquirer further wonders whether the city of Cincinnati could find itself laying off police and firefighters to cover the pension tabs of their retired colleagues. Could the same thing happen to teachers?  It’s not out of the question. The Buckeye State’s teacher retirement system faces an $18 billion unfunded liability (a whopping $15.5 billion more than that of the larger Ohio Public Employees Retirement System). Fordham alerted Ohioans to problems with the teacher pension system in 2007 and made suggestions for shoring up the system.  Lawmakers didn’t take heed at that time. Will they start to listen now?

During last night’s prime-time press conference, President Obama was asked about shared sacrifices during these tough times. The president noted that these are indeed difficult times for many Americans. Unemployment in the United States is approaching 10 percent and many of us are looking at 401(k) values that have shrunk by half in the past year. But, one group that is certainly not being asked to sacrifice is the Buckeye State’s public school teachers.

First, they’ve gotten language into the current state budget proposal that would make it illegal for a school district to lay off teachers for “financial reasons.” As personnel costs, particularly teacher salaries, make up about 70 percent or more of district expenses, this provision basically removes the ability of a local board and superintendent to manage a district’s finances. If a local levy fails or state funding to schools is reduced, this provision would protect teacher jobs above all else. So, in a city like Dayton where unemployment is 12.3 percent, the taxpayers would be on the hook for paying all teachers in the district whether they can afford them or not.

Second, under Ohio’s constitution the taxpayers are on the hook for guaranteeing in full all retirement benefits for teachers and other public sector employees.  According to the most recent State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio annual report (which covers July 2007 through June 2008-before the latest stock market tumble), the financial health of the system is worsening. As the economy has melted down, STRS’s unfunded liability has topped $18 billion (up $3.7 billion from the previous year). As this liability has increased, so has its amortization period, up from 26.1 years in 2007 to 41.2 years in 2008 (despite state law requiring an amortization period of no more than 30 years).

Many individuals and families have seen the values of their 401(k)s plummet over the last year, and many of us have had to adjust our expectations accordingly. Teachers and other public sector employees in Ohio are immune to these worries because their retirement benefits are guaranteed by the state. No matter how bad the public pension investments tank, the only ones who will take any of the hit will be taxpayers.

So, in Ohio anyway, it pays to be a teacher in tough economic times. They have protections that the rest of us can only dream about.

Perhaps the only thing related to K-12 education that Ohio’s governor and lawmakers aren’t talking about “fixing” is the State Teachers Retirement System (STRS). Odd, as few things are more outdated and in need of reform than the pension system.

We pointed out two years ago that the system is opaque, unsustainable, encourages early retirement, hinders mobility, and discourages many from entering the teaching profession. None of that has changed, and according to the system’s latest annual report (which covers July 2007 through June 2008), things are only getting worse. As the economy has melted down STRS’s unfunded liability has topped $18 billion (up $3.7 billion from the previous year and equal to roughly two-and-a-half times what the governor wants the state to spend on K-12 education next year). As this liability has increased, so has its amortization period, up from 26.1 years in 2007 to 41.2 years in 2008 (despite state law requiring an amortization period of no more than 30 years).

STRS attributes the dire situation to “investment returns being less than expected, retirees living longer and payroll growth being less than expected.” The pension system isn’t likely to see its investments rebound in the near-term. In fact, next year’s report (which will take into account the late-summer/early-fall stock market tumble) should be even worse. It’s also not likely that retirees will start dying younger or that teachers will retire later of their own accord when the incentives favor them retiring in their mid-50s. The only way STRS can shore up its financial situation is to ask the Buckeye State’s teachers and school districts to pony up more (Ohio teachers currently contribute 12 percent of their salaries to the system and districts put in another 14 percent).

With the infusion of money Governor Strickland is promising Ohio’s schools (an additional $925 million over the next two years and billions more over the following six), the teacher pension system is sure to want a piece of the pie. When the inevitable proposals surface for increasing pension contributions and making other changes to the system, the governor and legislature should reject them and instead work together to build a retirement system that is fair, transparent, portable, and sustainable.

As President-elect Obama and the new Congress work out the details on the final amount of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, there is sure to be much lobbying from teacher unions and other school establishment groups for their share of the $70 to $100 billion likely to go towards public education. Mike, Checker, and Rick Hess have offered great insights into this “pigs at the trough” situation in their NRO piece today. Here’s a plea from a piglet in Ohio:

However many billions are tossed at school construction and renovations, please make certain that charter schools get equal access to these dollars. Ohio has been in the midst of a multi-billion dollar public school construction program over the last decade, paid for largely by money from the Master Tobacco Settlement of late 1990s. Charter schools are not private or church-sponsored parochial schools. They are public schools, part of the family. Unfortunately, they are poor relations. Yet not one penny of these billions has gone to help charter schools in the Buckeye State. Charter schools here have literally had to beg, borrow, and steal to pay for facilities out of their per-pupil allotment of about $7,500. Quality charter schools serve the same needy children as district schools and as such they should get equal access to any new school facility dollars coming out of D.C.

Of course, it must be noted, there is no evidence that new school buildings have had any impact on student achievement in the Buckeye State. In fact, in Fordham’s hometown of Dayton district test scores have gone down as new buildings have come up, and charters as a whole outperformed the district in 2007-2008. Regardless, if money is going to be tossed around for new facilities successful charters should get equal access to it.

Photograph by hthg1983 from Flickr

In case you’re perusing Flypaper to gather some interesting, timely info with which to wow fellow party-goers tonight…… here are two interesting AP stories involving funding and schools:

The first piece discusses President-elect Obama’s plan to resuscitate/modernize schools across the nation as part of his economic stimulus plan. I’m pretty sure Fordham experts will have a lot more to say about it as days and weeks unfold! According to the AP story, Congress begins work on the economic recovery program on Wednesday.

The second is a story about one very lucky school. According to the piece, Oprah Winfrey recently donated  $365,000 to a private school in one of Atlanta’s poorest areas. The school is run by Ron Clark, who opened a letter from Winfrey last week and saw a piece of paper flutter to the ground. The gift was “incredible,” said Clark, whose school depends almost entirely on donations to operate. The gift money will likely go to scholarships for students, he said.

Happy New Year!

From Fall intern Molly Kennedy:

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the faltering economy is forcing schools to tighten their belts. The number one cost-saving step school districts have already taken? Altering thermostats. That’s according to a survey by the American Association of School Administrators. Other steps include hiring reductions, fewer supplies, larger class sizes, and a decrease in extracurricular activities. Read media coverage of the survey here, here and here.

Thermostat photograph from midnightcomm on Flickr

As Campaign K-12 reports, last night’s presidential debate was a bonanza for education. The candidates mentioned the word 21 times—which would look particularly impressive were it not for Joe the Plumber’s 26 citations. (Maybe four years from now Joe the Teacher will break through.)

The folks at Ed in ‘08 are no doubt hung over this morning from a raucous night of partying. (I know what that’s like.) For not only did Bob Schieffer target the last question of the last debate to the education issue, he teed it up in a manner that must have made Eli Broad smile.

The question is this: the U.S. spends more per capita than any other country on education. Yet, by every international measurement, in math and science competence, from kindergarten through the 12th grade, we trail most of the countries of the world.

The implications of this are clearly obvious. Some even say it poses a threat to our national security.

Do you feel that way and what do you intend to do about it?

The discussion that ensued may not move the dial on the percentage of Americans who consider education their topic election issue, but it surely boosted the numbers of people who think our public schools are going to hell in a hand basket.*

So Ed in ‘08: You were last night’s big winner!

But there were others... Read the rest of this post >>>

“Bush: Partial Nationalization Not An Abandonment of Free Market“

Readers are lighting up the comments section on this one regarding a comment made by “that one.” (Note to John McCain: please try to remember your opponent’s name next time.)

Even among well-informed Flypaper followers there is a great amount of disagreement regarding just how much teachers earn. So let me admit that it’s a bit unfair to expect a presidential candidate to get these particular facts straight. In fact, Barack Obama is in the mainstream when he talks about a teacher making $30,000 to $35,000 a year. A recent Education Next article based on a national poll showed that most Americans think teachers average $33,000 per year, when the actual amount is $47,000.

Of course, as one colleague expressed to me, these figures don’t include the generous pensions that teachers receive—pensions that are buffeted from the current turmoil in the market and which most private-sector employees no longer see.

I think we can all agree, however, that many teachers are underpaid. The key question is: which ones? It’s going to be hard in the current fiscal climate (really, any fiscal climate) to dramatically raise salaries across the board. It would be smarter to raise pay strategically. In my view, starting salaries in most places aren’t too bad—in the Washington area, new teachers get paid more than new Capitol Hill or think tank staffers—but the problem is that they quickly stagnate. Perhaps that’s why we have more of a retention problem than a recruitment problem. Plus today’s system provides incentives to get a master’s degree in education, even though these don’t relate to higher student achievement, and for teachers to hang on until the retirement payday, even if they have burned out long before.

So if I were king, I’d take Jacob Vigdor’s advice and accelerate pay scales so that teachers with 5-10 years of experience would make a lot more money than they are now; pay more for teachers in high-need subjects or tough schools; pay more for teachers that are boosting student learning; and turn “defined benefits” pensions into 401(K)s. (This last point will make teachers howl, particularly with the stock market on its wild ride, but I’m sorry: most Americans face this sort of volatility in their retirement savings, and public employees should too.)

“You know, it’s tough to ask a teacher who’s making $30,000 or $35,000 a year to tighten her belt when people who are making much more than her are living pretty high on the hog.” —Senator Barack Obama, October 7th presidential debate

As soon as I heard Senator Obama make this statement last night, I thought to myself, “Are there really that many teachers who only make $30,000 per year?” Sure, there are places in America where starting salaries are still around the $30K mark, but he couldn’t mean for us to feel bad for a 22-year-old who’s making $31K per year and has to “tighten her belt” by drinking cheap beer instead of micro-brews. His “I empathize with the middle class” statement must have been meant to invoke a teacher with a family, maybe a mortgage payment—you know, real responsibilities. Which implies not rookies but those with, say, at least five years of experience.

How much are those teachers making? I dipped into the National Council on Teacher Quality’s nifty collective-bargaining database for the nation’s largest 100 school districts to find out. Here are a few interesting tidbits. First, even many new teachers are doing better than Obama implied, at least in most places. Sioux Falls School District in South Dakota had the lowest starting salary of the top 100 districts at $26,000. In fact, Sioux Falls was the only sub-$30K district in the mix. And one in five districts start teachers at $35,000 or above.

What about our five-year veterans? Only four districts pay them less than $35K per year. About two-thirds of the district are north of $40K; the average for the whole group is $47,000. Now, these large districts probably pay higher salaries than districts on the whole, partly to offset of the higher costs of living in cities (which most of them serve). But still, it’s clear to me that the number of teachers “making $30,000 to $35,000 a year” must be awfully small. So Senator Obama: the next time you mention the archetypical teacher, you might talk about the challenges of her tightening her belt at $40,000 to $45,000 per year. It would be a lot more accurate.

Photo from Flickr user foundphotoslj.

A new poll finds that 60% of Americans think a depression is “likely.” I’m not one of them, though I do think we’re looking at a long-lasting recession. Will this be a disaster for public education? It’s true that it will put strains on our system, with needy children coming to school even needier; state revenues, and thus education funding, tightening; and the flow of philanthropic dollars slowing. This last phenomenon may be particularly troublesome for the school reform movement, which has been catalyzed by private support. Had we faced a severe recession in the 1990s, there might not have been a charter school movement.

But there is a silver lining: teaching and other education jobs will suddenly look a lot more attractive to lots more people. Folks who went into the classroom during the tech boom of the late 90s might have felt like martyrs, while their friends from college went on to make zillions of dollars. Now I suspect “safety and security” won’t be values relegated to the over-50 set. This means we might have an opportunity to attract higher quality people into teaching than we otherwise would, and we should capitalize on that by giving them the support to be successful and cutting the red tape that drives so many good people out of the classroom. For better or for worse, an opportunity like this is unlikely to come around again anytime soon.

George Leef is no fan of David Brooks’s column in yesterday’s New York Times (which we were the first to “cover” so cite us or else). Here’s why he doesn’t like it:

I am all in favor of widespread prosperity, but am not convinced either that the college versus high school earnings gap is a problem or that a system of universal college education would make the slightest bit of difference.

Pure speculation or not, I find compelling Mike’s lead editorial in this week’s Gadfly, which argues that extra-curricular activities in U.S. K-12 education foster “creativity, leadership, and the other ’21st Century skills’ that employers crave.”

But his closing line, light-hearted as it is, really disappoints, because it exemplifies the wrong-headed thinking that permeates ed policy and engenders so many ridiculous ideas for revamping K-12 to make us “more competitive.” He says:

So the next time that foreigners come to investigate what accounts for America’s economic success, don’t show them the extra-curriculars. They’re our secret weapons; we might want to keep it that way!

To all you K-12 ambassadors out there, please don’t listen to Mike. If China dispatches a special envoy to come study our schools, show them everything we’ve got. Contrary to what Mike and many much more irrational fear-mongerers out there suggest, we want foreign economies to thrive, because trade is not a zero-sum game; improving circumstances in one country benefit us all.

That’s my synopsis of this E.J. Dionne column about our current economic tribulations.

Since the Reagan years, free-market cliches have passed for sophisticated economic analysis. But in the current crisis, these ideas are falling, one by one, as even conservatives recognize that capitalism is ailing. You know the talking points: Regulation is the problem and deregulation is the solution.

I can hear the education blob-osphere now: “That’s right, E.J., and we’ve had too much deregulation in education, too. Too many charter schools, too much ‘alternative’ teacher certification, too much power in the hands of principals. What we need are some good old-fashioned regulations!”

Hogwash.

First of all, I suspect that even E.J. would agree that merely calling for re-regulation wouldn’t pass as “sophisticated economic analysis,” either. But more importantly, in education, we’re nowhere near the point where we’ve deregulated too much. Yes, there have been some high-profile examples when certain states or jurisdictions went too far; the early days of Arizona’s or Texas’s charter school programs come to mind, as quality-control mechanisms were not strongly in place. But the answer is not a return to old-fashioned regulation, but a move to smart regulation.

That’s what the standards-based reform movement was supposed to be about: regulating outcomes (student learning especially) instead of inputs (class size, teacher credentials, etc.). We’ve followed through on the outcomes side (though still have plenty of tweaking to do when it comes to measuring student achievement fairly and accurately). But by and large we’ve failed to deliver on deregulating the inputs side. We still require teacher “certification” one way or another; plenty of states still mandate certain class size limits; most still require onerous procedures for removing ineffective teachers from the workforce; pretty much all of them burden schools with expensive and inflexible pension plans; and very few principals yet have significant control over their budgets.

Maybe some sectors of the American economy were deregulated too much. (I don’t know—that’s not my area of expertise.) But not the sector we call public education.

Probably not, but since I missed last week’s patriotismpalooza, I figure I have some catching up to do. (And he’s British!) Perhaps he just wanted to drive home his point, in this Financial Times column, that the American economy is in trouble if we don’t improve our school system. But he overreaches here:

Younger cohorts are no better educated than these soon-to-retire boomers. Broadly speaking, educational quality has topped out—and on at least one measure, it is actually deteriorating. In 2006, Americans aged 55-59 collectively possessed more masters degrees, professional degrees, and doctorates than Americans aged 30-34. This impending loss of educational capital is entirely outside the country’s experience.

Well, that’s technically true but somewhat selective, as the younger cohort also has a greater percentage of people with just bachelor’s degrees. If you consider bachelor’s degrees and advanced degrees combined, these two cohorts look about the same. (See figure 1.1 here.) And as someone with just a bachelor’s degree, I can’t help but wonder whether these “advanced” degrees are really related to “greater human capital.” We know that master’s degrees in education don’t make teachers more effective; maybe advanced degrees in other fields are also weakly related to productivity.

Still, there’s plenty of reason to worry. As Mr. Crook points out, our declining high school graduation rates spell trouble—and attacking the problem will require much valor. Or, as Mr. Crook might say, valour. (Did I mention that he’s British?)

Even as he announced an initiative yesterday to educate more mathematicians and scientists, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg thought it necessary to point out that anti-immigration policies pose a grave threat to our economy.

I’d wager that stupid immigration policies, which George Will assails in today’s Washington Post, pose a much greater threat to long-term American competitiveness than sub-par schools.

Mike thinks I’m overzealous in questioning the zeal with which ed reformers tie America’s sub-par schools to forecasts of economic doom. There is, he argues, compelling evidence that economic growth is influenced by educational achievement, an arena where the United States typically trails lots of other countries. For instance, a recent Education Next article and an accompanying graph suggest that “cognitive skills,” as measured by norm-referenced test scores, correlate positively with economic growth; the authors claim that “a highly skilled work force can raise economic growth by about two-thirds of a percentage point every year.”

They also acknowledge, however, that the United States “has had a higher growth rate [from 1960 to 2000] than would be expected given its test scores and levels of school attainment.” We can thank a number of factors for this lucky bit of American exceptionalism:

...the United States has other advantages, some of which are entirely separate and apart from the quality of its schooling. The U.S. maintains generally freer labor and product markets than most countries in the world. There is less government regulation of firms, and trade unions are less powerful than in many other countries. Put more broadly, the U.S. has generally less intrusion of government in the operation of the economy, including lower tax rates and minimal government production through nationalized industries. Taken together, these characteristics of the U.S. economy encourage investment, permit the rapid development of new products and activities by firms, and allow U.S. workers to adjust to new opportunities.

The United States has some subtler quirks, too, that are perhaps no less important to its economic strength and stamina. It has, for instance, K-12 schools and universities that are less beholden to a central agency than those of other countries, which may contribute to their ability to cultivate eccentric, creative types who revolutionize or spawn entire industries, even if they fail to churn out bevies of exam-acing engineers. It has high levels of productivity that may or may not be culturally rooted in something like the “Protestant work ethic” or the romantic inspiration of the “American Dream.” It has a uniquely diverse population thanks to high levels of immigration, both historically and presently. It has a voracious appetite for consumables and lots of enterprising folks to provide them. It has Wall Street. It has Silicon Valley. It has Hollywood.

Economists try hard to classify and organize the material transactions and social interactions that create growth, and they’re amazingly good at it. But even the most illuminating studies pierce but a little of the darkness that obscures the complex workings of our economy. It is because of our inadequacy as humans of limited intelligence to fully comprehend this mind-boggling complexity, more than anything else, that we should be wary of forecasts of economic catastrophe. For the common result of such alarm-ringing, usually framed in rhetoric much stronger than the prognosticator’s confidence in his actual claims, is an eventual unpleasant confrontation with the beast of unintended consequences. (George Will’s column yesterday on proposed changes to baseball—another exquisite example of American exceptionalism, by the way—offered some eloquent thoughts on this age-old but still neglected phenomenon.)

Mike and the authors of the Education Next piece are surely right that if American students, all things being equal, performed better on tests, the U.S. economy would see added growth. But knee-jerking lawmakers (at whom most of the economic competitiveness laments are aimed) are clumsy and in their attempts to “fix” math and science education won’t leave all things equal. They’re likely to improve scores by a small amount at best and wreak further havoc on the schools, and even the economy, at worst.