March 2005 Education Matters 1

Education MattersApril 2005 A publication of the Association of American Educators

Promoting New Standards of Professionalism & Educational Enrichment

he practice that has come to beknown as “tracking” began as aresponse to the influx of immigrant

children into America’s schools duringthe early 20th century. To educate thisnewly diverse student population, schoolofficials thought it necessary to sortchildren into different “tracks” based ontheir ability or past performance.

In the early days of tracking, junior-high and high-school students wereassigned to academic, general, orvocational tracks.

Today this extreme form of tracking isrelatively rare. With the new emphasis onpreparing every student for college,tracking in its modern form has come tomean grouping students by ability withinsubjects. In each subject, students areassigned to advanced, regular, or basiccourses depending on their past perfor-mance. For instance, students in the

advanced track might take pre-calculus asjuniors in high school and calculus asseniors, while students in the basic trackmight go only as far as algebra II orgeometry. The creation and growth ofAdvanced Placement courses is perhapsthe best example of how tracking hasbecome an institutionalized practice (seechart on page 2).

The BacklashTeachers find that the modern form of

tracking facilitates instruction by makingit easier to gear lessons to the abilitylevel of the whole class. Parents of high-performing students also favor trackingbecause research shows that studentsassigned to high-ability groups makegreater gains in achievement. However,in studies published in 1986 and 1999,my colleagues and I found that studentsassigned to low-ability groups score

lower on standardized tests than if theyhad been placed in mixed-ability or high-ability groups.

That finding lies at the core of abacklash against tracking that began inthe 1980s. Critics argued that tracking,especially in practice, created greaterlearning opportunities for high-perform-ing students at the expense of their lower-performing peers. Tracking’s opponentsalleged that students in lower tracks oftenhad the weakest teachers in a school, anunchallenging curriculum, few academicrole models, and low social status.Moreover, they argued, tracking enablededucators to claim that courses wereacademic or college preparatory in naturewhen, in fact, the content lacked even thesemblance of rigor.

The movement picked up considerablemomentum with the 1985 publication ofJeannie Oakes’s deeply influential Keeping

Should Your SchoolEliminate Tracking?

The history oftracking anddetracking inAmerica’s schools

By Maureen Hallinan

T

Track: How Schools Structure Inequality.Oakes provided empirical evidence of thedisadvantages endured by students placedin lower tracks. Overall, Oakes character-ized tracking as an elitist practice thatperpetuated the status quo by givingstudents from privileged families greateraccess to elite colleges and high-incomecareers.

Perhaps the most notorious episode inthe detracking movement occurred inMassachusetts and California in the early1990s. Officials in both states mandatedthat middle schools eliminate or reducetracking. However, in The TrackingWars: State Reform Meets School Policy,Brookings Institution scholar TomLoveless demonstrated how schools,possessing a considerable degree ofautonomy, were able to implement thenew policy in ways that were consistentwith local preferences. While neitherstate withdrew the mandate, thedetracking movement could hardly claimvictory.

Minor InroadsThe National Educational Longitudinal

Study of 1988 asked a representative

sample of teachers whether students wereassigned to classes comprising studentswho were above average, average, belowaverage, or ranging widely in achieve-ment. Their responses suggested that,nationwide, 15 percent of 8th-gradestudents were heterogeneously groupedfor English classes, 14 percent formathematics, 12 percent for science, and18 percent for social studies. Theremaining large majority of students werein classes with students of roughly thesame ability level.

A second study, the Survey of HighSchool Curricular Options, sampled 912secondary schools in 1993 to obtaininformation about curriculum differentia-tion. It reported that 86 percent of highschools offered courses in which studentswere tracked. The data revealed that 14percent of 10th graders took mathcourses in groups in which students’abilities differed widely; the same wastrue for 28 percent of 10th graders inEnglish.

What explains the resilience oftracking? For one thing, teaching in adetracked school is far more difficult thanin a tracked school. Teachers who have

been assigned to detracked classes oftenreport that they must “teach to themiddle” or omit some of the curriculumbecause they don’t have time to instructstudents at every different level within aclass period. Moreover, detrackingnecessitates reallocating teachers andadministrators, modifying the curriculum,and providing professional training.Schools may find these changes prohibi-tive for budgetary or logistical reasons.Finally, parents of high-ability studentstend to prefer rigorous, homogeneousclasses, while other parents areunconvinced that heterogeneous classeswill benefit their children.

Subtle InfluenceDespite widespread opposition to

detracking and the failure of many effortsto institutionalize the policy, thedetracking movement has had a majorimpact on school reform. While mostschools still assign students to classesbased on ability, the movement hasheightened public awareness of the ofteninadequate resources and underwhelmingcurriculum provided to students in low-track classes.

Furthermore, the detracking movementhas challenged widely held beliefsregarding the notion of “ability” and therole it plays in determining the kind ofcurriculum to which students will beexposed. More educators are nowconvinced that nearly all students arecapable of mastering a challengingcurriculum. New academic standards,state tests, and accountability require-ments represent an effort to ensure thatall students are given access to a rigorouscurriculum. Detracking may neverbecome widespread, but changes such asthese are expected to improve theachievement of all students, particularlythose who are ill served by the negativeaspects of tracking as it is currentlypracticed. g

Maureen T. Hallinan is aprofessor of sociology anddirector of the Center forResearch on EducationalOpportunity at theUniversity of Notre Dame.

NOTE: The number ofexams given exceeds thenumber of individual test-takers because test-takersmay take exams in morethan one subject. Totalsinclude a small percentageof non-U.S. students.

SOURCES: College Board;U.S. Department of Education

AP Testing on the RiseAdvanced Placement (AP) courses represent an increasinglypopular form of ability tracking. Since 1982, the number of stu-dents sitting for AP exams has increased more than fivefold.The College Board estimates that just one-third of all studentsenrolled in AP courses actually sit for the exam.

Number ofTest-Takersand Exams

Given(in thousands)

2000

1800

1600

1400

1200

1000

800

600

400

200

01982 1986 1990 1994 1998 2002

School Year

AP Examinations AP Test-Takers

2 Education Matters April 2005

Teachers have a new resource to usewith their students in class.StudentNewsDaily.com is a website

promoting media literacy for high schoolstudents. “The goal is to build students’knowledge of current events and strengthentheir critical thinking skills,” says the site’screator, Kathy Privrat.

It provides teachers with simple, conciseactivities corresponding to the day’s topnews story and weekly opinion pieces.StudentNewsDaily.com other features in-clude: a student poll, the opportunity forstudents to interpret editorial cartoons, les-sons on identifying bias in the media, aswell as human interest items and links. Thesite aims to provide the media resourcesnecessary for students to have a balancedview of the news.

Kathy Privrat, a former New York Citypublic high school teacher, created the newssite to meet the need for providing studentswith multiple news sources. “In publicschools, students are taught about currentevents using CNN, the New York Times, andthe Washington Post,” says Privrat. “Mil-lions of American adults use many other

new media sources, but these sites do notcurrently provide education pages with les-son plans. StudentNewDaily.com providesresources for teachers who recognize theimportance of obtaining news from otherperspectives.”

StudentNewsDaily.com is the first newssite for high school students to use mul-tiple news sources to teach current events.

Diversity in ClassroomNews SourceHigh School Teacher Launches Multiple-Source News Website for Students

Kathy Privrat is an AAE member and taught ESLand literature classes in the New York publicschools before launching Studentnewsdaily.com.

News sites linked to include the Washing-ton Times, New York Sun, World Net Daily,Fox News, CNS News, and News Max.Opinion sites include Opinion Journal andTownhall. Magazine sites include TheAmerican Spectator, Human Events, Na-tional Review, The Weekly Standard, andWorld Magazine.

Studentnewsdaily.com welcomesteachers’ opinions regarding the site.Send your comments toKathy@StudentNewsDaily.com.

Thursday’s CommentaryA commentary on the week’s top news storywith a link to comprehension and criticalthinking questions.

Friday’s News QuizA multiple choice quiz on the week’s DailyFeatured Articles.

‘World’s Quick Takes’Amusing and sometimes thought-provokinghuman interest news briefs.

Quote of the WeekThought-provoking and amusing quote.

The StudentNewsDaily PollStudent opinion poll

Daily Featured ArticleThe top news story of the day is posted here.A link to comprehension and critical thinkingquestions.

Daily “Best of the Web”A collection of news items with commentaryby the editor of OpinionJournal.com.

Tuesday’s News IssueAn in-depth look at a top news story of theweek with a link asking students’ opinions.

Wednesday’s Biased ItemA weekly example of biased reporting andquestions about it, along with definitions ofthe types of media bias.

StudentNewsDaily.com Site Features

April 2005 Education Matters 3

The CNA Corpora-tion (which operatesthe Institute for

Public Research) re-leased its study of na-

tionally certified highschool teachers in Florida

and concluded that national certification“proved to be an effective signal of teacherquality,” according to author Linda C.Cavalluzzo. Well, that’s open to debate, butthe test gains of students with nationallycertified teachers (an additional 1.25 pointsover those with teachers who never got in-volved in the process) are not the most in-teresting finding of this study. Rather, it iswhat we learn about things that have noth-

According to the CollegeBoard’s first-ever

“Advanced Placement Reportto the Nation,” 13.2 percent ofthe graduating class of 2004demonstrated mastery (at leasta 3 on a 5-point scale) of oneor more Advanced Placement(AP) exams, up from 10.2percent from the 2000 class.Moreover, over the past fiveyears, all fifty states and theDistrict of Columbia reportedan increase in the percentageof students succeeding on APexams. For example, NewYork is the first state in thenation to see more than 20percent of its students achievea grade of 3 or higher on anAP exam, and California,Florida, Maryland, Massachu-setts, and Utah are close tothis level of achievement, withbetween 18 and 20 percent ofstudents earning a 3 or higher.

Since 1996, there have beensignificant increases inAfrican-American (+164

“High self-esteem in schoolchil-dren does not produce bettergrades. (Actually, kids with highself-esteem do have slightlybetter grades in most studies,but that’s because getting goodgrades leads to higher self-esteem, not the other wayaround.) In fact, according to astudy by Donald Forsyth atVirginia CommonwealthUniversity, college students withmediocre grades who gotregular self-esteem strokesfrom their professors ended updoing worse on final examsthan students who were told to

suck it up and try harder….After all these years, I’m

sorry to say myrecommendation isthis: Forget about self-esteem and concen-

trate more on self-control and self-

discipline.”

Roy F. Baumeister, professor in theDepartment of Psychology at FloridaState University. (January 25, 2005Los Angeles Times )

Degree or Not Degree: That is the QuestionNational Certification Study Unwittingly Exposes Salary Scale Flaws

Signs of the Times

ing to do with national certification: aca-demic degrees.

The important measurement of variationin teacher effectiveness analyzed by re-searchers in the study is called “effect size.”National certification had a positive effectsize of .074, which was statistically signifi-cant. However, the effect sizes of two othervariables were even more interesting: teach-ers’ qualifications in their subject matterhad the highest effect, and graduate degreeshad minimal impact.

The researchers studied 9th and 10th grademath results on the Florida ComprehensiveAssessment Test, and the largest effect sizewent to those who were teaching in theirappropriate subject area, namely math. The

effect size for those teachers was .114. Re-searchers also isolated another variable:whether the teacher held a graduate degree.The effect size was a paltry .017.

In other words, while a graduate degreehad minimal effect, high school math teach-ers teaching high school math was more ef-fective than their possession of NationalCertification.

The amount states spend on bonuses forteachers with national certification is a sig-nificant sum. However, if the CNA study isto be believed, schools can easily fundteacher bonuses, and more, if they stoppaying teachers for that which has virtu-ally no effect on student performance,namely, graduate school semester hours. g

The report is available at http://www.cna.org/documents/CavaluzzoStudy.pdf

AP Scores Higher Last Year

For more, go to http://www.collegeboard.com/about/news_info/ap/2005/.

percent), Hispanic (+197percent), and American Indian(+115 percent) studentsscoring 3 or higher on APexams, and the proportion ofHispanic students taking APexams (13.1 percent) is todayabout the same as the propor-tion of Hispanic students inpublic schools (12.8 percent).However,African-American

students remain significantlyunderrepresented in AP:African-American studentsmake up 13.2 percent of thestudent population but only6.0 percent of AP test takers.Research shows that studentswho succeed on one or moreAP exams are more likely thantheir peers to complete abachelor’s degree in fouryears. President Bush hasproposed a 73 percentincrease in theDepartment’sAP initiatives.

Quote of Note

4 Education Matters April 2005

By Mike Antonucciwww.eiaonline.com

Most states are unlikely tomake genuine strides in

addressing teacher qualityproblems, insofar as veteranteachers are concerned, so con-cluded the National Council onTeacher Quality (NCTQ).

It released the second in a se-ries of reports that highlightsstates’ progress towards meet-ing NCLB’s goal of putting ahighly qualified teacher in ev-ery classroom in the nation.

The chief conclusion ofSearching the Attic is that moststates aren’t acknowledging thefallout from having demandedso little from teacher prepara-tion over the years, nor are theylooking for reasonable fixes.

NCTQ judged the 50 stateHOUSSE plans against a set ofcriteria thatgauged states’ability to iden-tify and sup-port weakteachers. Un-fortunately, 20states earned agrade of D orF, usually be-cause theirplans consist ofasking teachers to “search theirattics” for documentation of anyand all education-related activi-ties that spanned their full ca-reers, little of which providescurrent and objective evidence

of competency. These state-ap-proved activities commonly in-clude attending workshops, ei-ther having been a mentor orbeing mentored, taking method-ology courses, receiving a sat-isfactory teacher evaluation,serving on a school committeeor attending conferences. Themost disturbingly consistentfeatures of many HOUSSEplans are the many loopholesthat allow weak teachers to by-pass the more rigorous routesthat most states offer.

Colorado stands alone as theonly state to earn an A, insist-ing that all teachers have at least24 credit hours in their subjectarea or take a test. Anotherseven states earned B grades byapproving plans that should re-sult in practicing teachers, nomatter what the rules were whenthey entered teaching, to obtainat least an academic minor intheir subject area. These sevenstates are Alabama, Hawaii,Kansas, Maryland, Oregon,Pennsylvania, Texas and Ver-mont.

Key recommendations:

1. At reauthorization, NCLBshould be amended to grantmiddle school teachers highlyqualified status, even if theyonly possess a college minorin their subject area. The lawcurrently requires these

teachers to have a major.2. Subject matter tests forelementary teachers shouldalso include a test inscientifically-based earlyreading instruction.3. The federal governmentneeds to take a more activerole in bringing more publictransparency to states’subject matter licensingexams, with an independentreview body noting which

tests are the most rigorous andrecommending minimumpassing scores on the mostwidely used tests. g

For the full report, visit www.nctq.org

Searching the AtticHow states are determining

“Quality Teachers”

“Most statesaren’tacknowledgingthe fallout fromhavingdemanded solittle fromteacherpreparationover the years.”

Smaller ClassesAchievement and Class Size Reduction

Researchers at the University of London foundno evidence that children in smaller classes

made more progress in math, English, or science.The study covered students aged 7 to 11.

The researchers additionally found no evidence that teachercharacteristics, such as age, level of experience, or length oftime in their current school, “had any influence upon pupilattainment in any [academic] discipline.”

A five-page summary of the report is available on the UK government’s Department forEducation and Skills website at http://www.dfes.gov.uk/research/data/uploadfiles/RBX13-04.pdf.

In Texas, the Americans forProsperity Foundation has

initiated a website encourag-ing individual educators,taxpayers, and others toreport instances of allegedwasteful spending in thepublic school systemwithout beingsubject to harass-ment or reprisals.

For example,one teachercomplained herdistrict consid-ered laying offtwenty teachersbut no administra-tors. Anotherreport comesfrom several teachers blowingthe whistle on their districtspending $4 million for a

discipline managementtraining program, only to seeit quickly terminated by manyschools.

While major losses resultfrom bureaucratic inefficiencyand incompetence, individual

fraud is common.For example, inSeptember 2004, akickback scheme inFort Worth, Texas,resulted in a districtdirector of mainte-nance and acontractor eachbeing sentenced toeight years inprison for reportedlydefrauding the

district of nearly $16 million.

Source: David W. Kirkpatrick,www.freedomfoundation.us

Educators Become Whistle-blowerswww.educatorswitnessprotectionprogram.com.

“Only about 50cents on everydollar actually

goes toclassroom

instruction.”

April 2005 Education Matters 5

ince the September 11th terroristattacks, teachers have tried to an-

swer students’ questions pertaining to theMiddle East and the Muslim religion. Asour American presence continues in Iraq,and as American politics continue to focuson foreign relations with the Middle East,our schools are hungry for ways to educateboth teachers and students on the culture,politics, sociology, religion, and, of course,geography of the Arab World.

With growing Arab andMiddle Eastern populations inour own country — as well asthe growth of Islam in theUnited States — the need topursue this type ofmulticultural curriculum hasbecome a pressing one.

Unfortunately, in the searchfor curriculum to serve this pur-pose, Audrey Shabbas’ TheArab World Studies Notebook(AWSN) has found its way intoschools nationwide. While anacademic, factual, and insight-ful presentation of Islam andthe Arab World would be awelcome addition to amulticultural study in the classroom,Shabbas’ AWSN is an inaccurate and in-doctrinating curriculum that should not beallowed to continue in public schools. Wil-liam Bennetta, president of The TextbookLeague, defined the AWSN as:

“A vehicle for disseminatingdisinformation, including a multitude offalse, distorted, or utterly absurd claims thatis presented as historical facts. I infer thatthe “Notebook” has three principal pur-poses: inducing teachers to embrace Islamicbeliefs; inducing teachers to embrace po-

litical views that are favored by the MEPCand AWAIR; and impelling teachers to dis-seminate those religious beliefs and politi-cal views in schools. The promotion of Is-lam in the Notebook is unrestrained….In apublic school setting, the religious- indoc-trination work which Shabbas wants teach-ers to perform would clearly be illegal.”

The Association of Professional Okla-homa Educators (APOE) is unwilling to

stand by as falsehoods aretaught to our children as facts.In response to Shabbas’AWSN, we at APOE havejoined with former Shi’iteMuslim Reza Safa who is aninternational speaker andChristian pastor atFisherman’s House Church inTulsa, Oklahoma. Unlike Ms.Shabbas, who grew up inAmerica and married a Mus-lim, Safa experienced first-hand the Muslim beliefs andthe way America is viewed byMuslims. Pastor Safa is a best-selling author and expert whohas written several books onIslam and the Arab culture. In

the future, Pastor Safa will work with APOEFoundation not only to provide educationalworkshops to Oklahoma students, teachers,and school administrators, but also to de-velop a factual and informative alternativeto Shabbas’ propagandist curriculum.

APOE’s first presentation with PastorSafa was conducted in Weatherford, Okla-homa, for the Weatherford Public Schoolsteacher in-service day on January 3, 2005.As a part of this seminar, Pastor Safa dis-cussed his personal background as an Ira-nian Shi’ite Muslim, the Culture of the

MiddleEast (includingpeople groups, family structure, religion,economics, and politics), modern historyof the Middle East (including Mohammadand the birth of Islam, Islamic dominancein the Middle East, major events of the 20thcentury, U.S. policy and the Middle East,growth of radical Islam, and growth ofChristianity), and Middle Eastern Muslimsin America (increased immigration andgrowth, areas of influence, and understand-ing Middle Eastern Muslim students).

One APOE local leader reported that,since hosting the seminar at her school,“many teachers have come up to me to tellme how informative and timely the MiddleEast/Islam presentation was. They havesaid that it was one of the most useful andinteresting presentations we’ve had in along time.” The APOE Foundation hasplayed the primary role in funding and co-ordinating this workshop to provide truth-ful and appropriate education on Islam andthe Middle East to Oklahoma teachers.g

For more information on Reza Safa’sworkshop on Islam, contact the Associationof Professional Oklahoma Educators’Foundation, P.O. Box 713, Norman, OK73070; 1-888-331-APOE;foundation@apoe.org; www.apoe.org

Textbook BiasCritical Thinking Needed in Evaluating Textbook on Islam

By Ginger Tinney

S

Upon his conversion fromIslam to Christianity whileliving in Sweden, RezaSafa’s father disowned himand his mother tried toadmit him to a mentalhospital through the IranianEmbassy in Stockholm.

6 Education Matters April 2005

Ginger Tinney is theExecutive Director of theAssociated ProfessionalOklahoma Educators, apartner with the Associationof American Educators.

Source: Bennetta, William J. The Textbook League. “ArabWorld Studies Notebook lobs Muslim propaganda at teachers.”E-mail letter of 8 October 2003 from The Textbook League’spresident, William J. Bennetta, to Stuart Elliott, of Wichita,Kansas. www.thetextbookleague.org.

April 2005 Education Matters 7

very year, Washington Post’s Style Invitational

asks readers to take any wordfrom the dictionary, alter it byadding, subtracting, orchanging one letter, andsupply a new definition. Hereare this year’s winners.

Bozone (n.): Thesubstance surround-ing stupid peoplethat stops brightideas from penetrat-ing. The bozone

layer unfortunatelyshows little sign of breakingdown in the near future.

Intaxication: Euphoria at get-ting a tax refund, which lasts

until you realize it was yourmoney to start with.

Reintarnation: Coming backto life as a hillbilly.

Cashtration (n.):The act of buying ahouse, which rendersthe subject financiallyimpotent for an indefinite pe-riod.

Giraffiti : Vandalism spraypainted very, very high.

Sarchasm: The gulf betweenthe author of sarcastic wit andthe person who doesn’t get it.

Osteopornosis: A degeneratedisease. (This one got extracredit.)

Karmageddon: It’slike, when everybodyis sending off all these

really bad vibes, right? Andthen, like, the Earth ex-plodes and it’s like, a seri-ous bummer, dude.

Decafalon (n.): The gruel-ing event of getting through

the day consuming only thingsthat are good for you.

Glibido: All talk and no action.

Dopeler effect: The tendency ofstupid ideas to seem smarterwhen they come at you rapidly.

Caterpallor (n.): The color youturn after finding half a grub inthe fruit you’re eating.

You DonÕt SayVocabulary with a tw

The Lighter Side

Hipatitis: Terminalcoolness.

Beelzebug (n.): Satan inthe form of a mosquito that getsinto your bedroom at three inthe morning and cannot be castout.

Inoculatte: To takecoffee intravenouslywhen you are runninglate.

Arachnoleptic fit (n.): Thefrantic dance performed just af-ter you’ve accidentally walkedthrough a spider web.

Across the country, over 250,000teachers have decided to leave orforego the teachers’ unions and jointhe Association of AmericanEducators or our sister organizationsat the state level.

Teachers by calling,professionals by choice.

The Association ofAmerican EducatorsThe Association of

American Educators

A professional association focused on theclassroom and on helping you as a teacher.A professional association focused on theclassroom and on helping you as a teacher.

www.aaeteachers.org

Last fall the House of Representativesvoted to increase education funding by

$2 billion. The Department of Educationwill receive a total of $57.7 billion to ad-minister K-12 and postsecondary programsin 2005. Programs serving poor and dis-abled students will receive the largest boost.Funding for education programs adminis-tered by other agencies, such as Head Start,also will increase. The bill passed with thesupport of Democrats and all but a fewRepublicans.

While the bill brings education spend-ing to an all-time high, the National Edu-cation Association continues to claim thatit “falls far short of what schools need tofully meet the mandates of the so-called ‘NoChild Left Behind’ law.” Another advocacygroup, the Committee for Education Fund-ing, calls the bill a “fiscal starvation strat-egy.”

While it may be too much to expect them

to say “this is sufficient” or “this is toomuch,” or even “thank you,” these special-interest groups, at least, shouldn’t misleadpeople. NCLB is not an unfunded mandate.The act is both funded and voluntary. Be-

sides this, therewere no promises.Congress setsfunding levels forall programs in an-nual appropria-tions bills. Severalstudies suggestthat these fundinglevels are ad-equate.

Special-interest groups are not the onlyones guilty of disingenuous rhetoric. Con-gress routinely claims that it is doing all itcan to maximize funding for poor and dis-abled children. Yet, the annual appropria-tions bills are invariably chock full of pork-

barrel spending and funding for special-interest programs such as the HistoricWhaling and Trading Partners ExchangeProgram, Ready-to-Learn Television, andthe Women’s Educational Equity Act, toname only three.

Rhetoric aside, the question remains: Isthe level of federal funding for educationsufficient? To answer this question, onemust first put federal spending in perspec-tive. Of the half a trillion dollars the nationspends on its schools, federal funding ac-counts for less than 10 percent – a smallslice of a very large pie.

Internationally, the United States is thebig spender. The U.S. is second only toSwitzerland in K-12 spending, relative toper-capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP),and it rises to first place when post-second-ary spending is added. However, in termsof achievement, American students are notat the head of the class. In fact, by the 12thgrade, they drop to near the bottom in mathand science on both international and na-tional assessments. On one internationalscience and math test for 12th graders, theU.S. ranked 18th out of 21 countries. Onour own tests – the National Assessment ofEducational Progress – less than a quarterof 12th grade students are proficient in ei-ther subject.

If big spending has left us near the bot-tom of the pile academically, is the fund-ing question really the most important oneto be asking? There will likely never beconsensus on what constitutes adequatespending at either the state or the nationallevel. But to make progress in educationpolicy, it would be a good start to admitthat money should not be the only questionup for debate.g

8 Education Matters March 2005

Education Matters is a publication of theAssociation of American Educators (AAE)25201 Paseo de Alicia, Suite 104Laguna Hills, CA 92653

www.aaeteachers.org; (800) 704-7799E-mail: info@aaeteachers.orgGary Beckner, Managing EditorKelley Autry, Associate Editor & ResearcherDiane Meyer, Editorial AssistantBobette Craycraft, Editorial Assistant

Presorted StandardUS Postage Paid#400Laguna Niguel, CA

Krista Kafer is Senior EducationPolicy Analyst at The HeritageFoundation.www.heritage.org.

A Question of MoneyNo Child Left Behind is Not an “Unfunded Mandate”By Krista Kafer

“The U.S. issecond only toSwitzerland inK-12 spending,relative to per-capita GDP.”