I think it’s fair to say that we Americans, whatever our other different predilections, are pretty demanding shoppers. We expect good value in the goods and services we buy and exert ourselves to obtain it. We pass lemon laws and have well-developed doctrines of implied warranty that require sellers to stand behind their claims.
A growing chorus comprising voices from left and right argues that it is past time to bring a similar accountability to one of our most vital services, the education delivered by U.S. colleges and universities. Whether by fining them a fraction of their graduates’ student debt defaults, charging them an insurance premium against such failures to repay, or some similar mechanism, the concept of schools sharing the risk of inadequate performance with the taxpayers has wide and growing support.
That’s a sound principle as applied to higher education, but why stop there? A parallel approach might inject a degree of accountability into the K-12 area, where the performance record is, if anything, worse, and the consequences even more destructive at both the individual and societal levels.
Year after dreary year, hundreds of thousands of high school diplomas are awarded to young people who, it turns out, are not nearly literate or numerate enough to identify the main idea of a reading passage or to perform basic computations. We’re not talking about readiness for MIT. Even at the nation’s community colleges, 40 percent or more of students require “remediation,” which amounts to factory recall repair work for a defective original job. The beleaguered taxpayer pays twice for the same service, which far too often fails a second time.
Federal and state governments have rightly focused on high school graduation rates as a paramount goal. The diploma has long been recognized as the first essential step toward productive adult life. My home state of Indiana, in one typical initiative, prohibits dropping out of high school without a personal conference attended by the student and parents, where the likely negative consequences are reviewed in detail. Graduation rates are widely publicized, and schools scramble to look as good as possible.
But the opportunity to grant exceptions on graduation requirements — justifiably intended for those for whom English is a second language or who have special needs — can turn into a gaping loophole, exploited to “waive through” students who fall far short of any adequate preparation for either work or citizenship. In pre-pandemic 2019, an encouraging 87 percent statewide graduation rate was tainted by a record 12.4 percent of diplomas granted through waivers.
Through one of the educational reforms for which I advocated as governor, Indiana prohibits the so-called social promotion of children from third to fourth grade until they pass a reading test. It’s well-established that up to that point, children must learn to read, so that beyond it they can “read to learn.” Yet far too many schools choose to shuffle along kids who are not reading-ready, in most cases dooming them to struggle and failure later on.
The reform worked, in a uniquely rapid and emphatic fashion. In the first post-reform cycle of national assessments, Indiana fourth-graders jumped from 27th to 14th. Two years later, the state ranked ninth. The extra costs for summer tutoring, or the reputational bruise from too many youngsters having to repeat third grade, clearly got the system’s attention.
So a little accountability can go a long way. But whenever the K-12 system can devise ways to disguise its shortcomings, it will. Last year, Oregon made a cryingstock of itself by ending proficiency exams for its high school graduates. Obviously too few students, including too few in specific demographic categories, were learning what they were supposed to. A lot of losing football coaches in Oregon wish they, too, could just stop keeping score, but, of course, football is too important for such nonsense.
Turns out the idea of an education “warranty” flickered briefly, a couple of decades ago. A few isolated high schools around the country, and even the Los Angeles Unified School District, touted guarantees of proficiency in reading, writing and problem-solving, with free retraining for graduates not meeting that standard. But all sank without a trace.
After a decade in higher education, I’m sure that even a modicum of risk to an institution would produce behavior change. If there’s anything that motivates college administrators as much as money, it’s reputation, and getting a bill for a share of graduates’ debt defaults would deliver a hit to both. The reaction in the K-12 world would be similar.
When a coffee pot, a lawn mower or a smartwatch fails to deliver as advertised, we don’t hesitate to ask for a remedy, and we don’t expect to be charged a second time. When, aside from public safety, the most important service we purchase from government breaches its warranty, why do we settle for so much less?
