Julie Berry Cullen, Steven D. Levitt, Erin Robertson, and Sally Sadoff write,
our advice to high schools when it comes to underperforming students is to redefine the mission and eschew traditional success metrics like test scores, focusing instead on more pragmatic objectives like keeping kids out of trouble, giving them practical life skills, and helping with labor market integration. That conclusion will no doubt be unsatisfying to many readers. In an ideal world, high schools would perform miracles, bringing struggling students back from the brink schools and launching them towards four-year college degrees.
So far, I could call this Journal of Economic Perspectives symposium on education “Living with the null hypothesis.”
To connect two of Arnold’s favorite topics, the validity of the null hypothesis in education would present an arbitrage opportunity in real estate.
The null hypothesis implies children reach the same eventual outcome, regardless of the quality of their schools.
Since school quality is a huge factor in housing prices, the arbitrage would be for parents to purchase an underpriced house in a bad school district.
It’ll be nicer than what they could have afforded in a good school district, and their kid will wind up in the same place.
Even if the null hypothesis is not literally true, there would still be an arbitrage opportunity, if most people are massively overpaying for the relatively small benefit of a better school district.
“focusing instead on more pragmatic objectives like keeping kids out of trouble, giving them practical life skills, and helping with labor market integration.”
a/k/a the “To Sir, With Love” thesis.
our advice to high schools when it comes to underperforming students is to redefine the mission and eschew traditional success metrics like test scores, focusing instead on more pragmatic objectives like keeping kids out of trouble, giving them practical life skills, and helping with labor market integration.
That is great advice. Probably illegal but great advice just the same.
@David: that would be a good idea if “bad school district” wasn’t often synonymous with “dangerous school district”. I’d be ok with my kid going to mediocre schools since I know school quality doesn’t matter, but not ok with him going to a school where he might — with non-trivial probability — get shot. I jumped into a magnet program so I could go to George Washington instead of my neighborhood school, North. Denver readers will understand why.
More generally, I would ask: why are we not teaching practical life skills and the how-to’s of labor markets to ALL students? Seems important, and far more communicable than calculus or physics.
I have some horrible feelings that:
1. “Going to college” sounds like a better objective for their kids to most parents, rather than “shop training.”
2. Shop classes are more expensive to run than algebra classes
3. Nobody has really figured out how to give realistic “real world” training to kids in a world where auto mechanics change electronic circuit boards rather than bore out carburators
4. There probably aren’t jobs for kids who took courses in construction and auto mechanics anyhow
What about Intro to airframe & powerplant mechanics as a HS series of courses? Airplanes aren’t going away soon…. Or, my SIL earns 6 figures as a project manager for data center construction — and he has all the work he can handle.
I believe that there ARE vocational opportunities for high school students to get a jump start on. No, HS school courses won’t qualify them 100%, but they could finish up at a community college, maybe enter an apprenticeship program partnered with an industry employer, and then go out into the world and earn some money & be productive & contributing members of our society.
What if the school system is part of the reason that kids under perform? Honestly, can you think of a better system to make kids hate learning than our current “prison model” school system?
If the long run is predestined, we should focus on policies which shorten the time to reach that outcome. That means defining success as few years of schooling.