The most succesful education reforms???!!

In thrall to the teachers unions???!!!

Seriously Mickey, you need to get a grip on your hyperbole. Your un-natural predeliction for vouchers that have been proven to be no better than normal ed and usually worse, is simply demagougery at its worst.

Vouchers would not be so bad if we didn't hand them out to all comers. We're so concerned with freedom of religion we think it has to include the freedom to educate your children in a primitive catechism.

Yeah vouchers would be bad even if we restrict their issuance to secular schools. Why? Because

1. They suck $$ out of the public school district making it worse
2. Public Ed is so effective that it COSTS between 50% and 66% of even the cheapest private schools

#2 means that unless you are going to encourage attendence at sub-standard schools, Vouchers don't work since they don't cover the cost of "competitive schools"

Note that educational competition has never been shown to work. The "supply/demand" signal that everyone cites requires a fairly quick feedback loop between the delivery of the product (teaching) and the ability to meaningfully measure the quality (students learning). In markets where the feedback loop is slow or hard to evaluate (teaching fits that criteria), regulated systems work better than "market" systems

While you are right, that there is not decent empirical studies which show vouchers improve educational outcomes, and I am skeptical that they would, I'm slightly dubious as to your theory of slow "feedback" as a reason for why they don't.

While teaching outcomes are hard to assess in short amounts of time, and teaching outputs are also hard to evaluate in the short term, if you believe that organizational culture has any effect on those outputs/outcomes, and thus there are such things as "school effects", within a generation there should be systematic differences in the outcomes of students from different schools, which could then be used to inform better choices on the part of parents.

But you are right, those good things, if they exist, will take decades to observe, and there is no reason to think that vouchers will do much good for current students.

I agree there are very much systemic/organizational effects. That said, even the best principal has a limited set of levers they can effectuate in the current system. There are many things that could be done to improve the system but the simplest is to simply higher more qualified teachers.

Currently ACTUAL class sizes run 30+ students. The way they deal with getting the statistical class size down is that now they count "all certificated staff" - which includes the librarian, any guidance counselor with a teaching cert, the Principal, all the VPs and any coach that has a teaching Cert.

And even then they are hardpressed to get class sizes down to the low 20s.

And we know from study after study after study, that the threshold knees in academic performance occur at 12, 25 and 30 students in the class. Above 25 and you can only "perch and preach", above 30 its primarily a babysitting exercise.

So the ONLY way we can get class sizes down to reasonable levels is to spend roughly 50% more than we do today. Oddly enough that is what it COSTS the typical archdiocese compared to the spending of the public schools in the same community.

BUT the American public isn't going to stand for that increased spending any time soon

"Currently ACTUAL class sizes run 30+ students. The way they deal with getting the statistical class size down is that now they count "all certificated staff" - which includes the librarian, any guidance counselor with a teaching cert, the Principal, all the VPs and any coach that has a teaching Cert."

The means of calculating the student/teacher ratio varies by state. There is no uniform method nationally. Each state has its own criteria.

The district I work in is notable in my state for the low student/teacher ratio in conjunction with our very low expenditure per student. And our standardized test scores that are reported to NCLB are excellent. Especially when compared to other districts that are similar demographically.

It can be done. School climate is key, and a 'small school' approach is great for students. I'm glad to see more schools in my state trying this model.

You will always get above avg performance if you get the right group of folks together. But you cannot rely on it. But actually there is a uniform means of calculating student/Teacher ratios NCES normalizes that data, and that's were my numbers come from.

As for low/student expenditure. Since the majority of expenditure is for teacher salaries ($100k/$7k = 14 students just to pay for a teachers loaded cost) either you are underpaying your teachers or you are cutting corners elsewhere.

As for standardized tests, I don't take them all that seriously.