In almost any conversation about accountability for private schools, accountability for public schools is assumed. This is a dangerous myth. By assuming that the edifice that states and the federal government have created over the past several decades actually holds schools accountable, school choice advocates immediately find themselves in an…

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and the Foundation for Excellence in Education have embarked on a well-funded campaign to spread selected Florida education reforms to other states. These reforms include assigning letter grades to schools, high-stakes testing, promotion and graduation requirements, bonus pay, a wide variety of alternative teacher…

Regardless of how many times people are told by the Educational Testing Service not to use the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) as a gross measure of school productivity, the test continues to be used for that purpose. This article shows how misleading SAT scores and per-student-expenditure correlations are used to justify spending less money on…

In a November 1995 "Educational Leadership" article, Eric Hanushek claimed that neither educational spending nor class size affects student achievement. A rigorous reanalysis of the evidence, including Hanushek's own data, shows that resources matter. While increased spending will not automatically produce increased achievement, adequate…

Because educators have unrealistic expectations about tests, they use them inappropriately and draw inaccurate conclusions from results. This article debunks five myths about test-score comparisons: valid measurement of school quality; declining international competitiveness; "fixing" schools with more tests; development of new, improved…

Schools have been criticized perennially for their profligate waste of taxpayer money. Currently, there are two separate myths about schools and money: the United States spends more than any other country; and money doesn't matter. U.S. schools have many nonteaching school employees because they provide services that other nations do not. (MLH)

Debunks eight misconceptions concerning U.S.'s alleged "lavish" spending on education in comparison to other countries. The share-of-national-income approach and measures of per pupil spending are frequently misinterpreted and often exclude education need and education resource cost. Nations with an expensive, highly productive labor…

Examines dropout rates, standardized test scores, commission reports, university enrollments, per pupil expenditures, special education costs, employment trends, and other indicators to show that U.S. education is not in the sorry condition its critics claim. Rereading "A Nation at Risk" (1983) discloses a xenophobic screed having little…

This scientifically representative poll of 1,200 Floridians finds that public opinion about K-12 public education spending is seriously misinformed. Floridians think public schools need more money, but the main reason is that they are badly mistaken about how much money the public schools actually get. Key findings of the study include: (1) Half…