In the course of any week there is an avalanche of studies that cross my desk.  A few are important, most are predictable.  Last month I came across two reports that should be required reading for governors, legislators, parents and voters of every stripe.  Both of these well-documented, finely crafted studies should raise the hair on the back of your neck.  They did mine.

The first study was authored by McKinsey and Company, the global management consulting outfit that has built a large practice examining education systems around the globe.  This particular study looked at the how the achievement gaps in U.S. schools are affecting America’s economic well-being.  It begins with the ominous declaration that, “The extent to which a society utilizes its human potential is among the chief determinants of its prosperity.”  The analysts at McKinsey note that there are enormous shortfalls in academic achievement which impose heavy consequences on America’s quality of life.

The study identifies the major gaps that affect prosperity. The gap between the accomplishments of American students and students in other developed countries is shrinking our GDP by as much as 16%.  This is slightly less than what we spend on health care and that is universally seen as a crisis.  McKinsey similarly calculates that shrinking the gap between white and minority students is costing our economy 4% of its potential. 

They state, “the persistence of these educational achievement gaps imposes on the United States the equivalent of a permanent national recession.”

But the problem is not hopeless.  The McKinsey experts lay out a hopeful argument that the gaps can be closed and they have the data to back up their contention.  The unmistakable lesson one takes away from the McKinsey study is that America has a choice; we can either reform education or the economic powerhouse that once was the U.S. economy will perish for good.

But do we really have a taste for educational reform?  The second important study exposes the shroud of complacency that has descended over our schools.  The Widget Effect published by the New Teacher Project, examines, “Our national failure to acknowledge and act on differences in teacher effectiveness.”  In the knowledge-based economy teachers are more important than ever.  They have, “an outsized impact on student performance.” 

Yet teachers have come to be seen as widgets.  One is just like another.  “A teacher’s effectiveness – the most important factor for schools in improving student achievement – is not measured, recorded or used to inform decision-making in any meaningful way.”  The study maintains that, “a culture of indifference about the quality of instruction,” is the hallmark of schools in America. 

Lest you think this is just another right-wing attack on teacher unions please understand that the outfit that conducted this study was formed and is run by teachers.  Further, the most compelling data in the study is survey of 15,000 teachers and 1,300 school administrators.  Teachers see the hypocrisy in the fact that 99% of teachers are rated satisfactory.  They see the current system used by administrators to evaluate teachers as comical.   No less than 58% of teachers say that a tenured teacher in their school is performing poorly and, by implication should be moved.  Sixty-eight percent of teachers feel that poor performance is regularly overlooked by administrators. 

This is not an industry that takes excellence seriously.  The Widget Effect is an excoriating assessment of both union and management complacency.  While academics, politicians, free markets, parents and others tout excellence and reform, the system that we rely on to deliver is bent on mediocrity. 

Until Americans rise up to reclaim their schools, we will continue to expect mediocre performance and a widening of the achievement gaps outlined in the McKinsey study.  And 16% of America’s GDP will be gone forever.

-July 9, 2009