Education

The Renewing America Initiative is publishing today a new Progress Report and Infographic Scorecard on federal education policy entitled “Remedial Education.” There is no single issue that is more important to America’s future, and probably none where the challenges are greater. The report starts with a simple assertion that is truer today than at any other time in American history: “Human capital is the single most important long-term driver of an economy.” In their seminal study The Race Between Education and Technology, Lawrence Katz and Claudia Goldin argue that U.S. investments in education in the early 20th century were the most important contributor to the country’s rise to global leadership. The United States was a pioneer in free and accessible public education, such that by the late 1930s nearly 70 percent of 14 to 17-year-olds were enrolled in school, more than twice as many as in the United Kingdom. The result was the creation a vast reservoir of human talent that allowed the United States to build the strongest economy and the strongest military forces the world has ever seen. But that lead is long gone, partly because other countries came along and made the same or greater investments in public education, and partly because the United States has done far too little to protect the lead it had built. The report and scorecard are filled with examples of this slippage. Among 55-64 year olds, the leading edge of the baby boomers, a higher proportion of Americans has at least a high school education than any other country in the world; among those a generation behind however, American 25-34 year olds rank just 10th in the world in high school completion. Compared with other advanced countries, too few U.S. children are enrolled in pre-school education, and too many drop out of college before getting a degree. One of the striking conclusions of the report is that the failure of federal education policy has been greatest in its core mission of reducing disparities in public education. While states still play a primary role in public schools, the federal government has long used its funding power to try to bring up the performance of children from poorer, under-served neighborhoods. While the report charts some progress in reducing racial disparities in education achievement, the gap in achievement by income is growing. In short, children from well off families are vastly more likely to succeed in school than children from poorer families. According to the report: "The real scourge of the U.S. education system—and its greatest competitive weakness—is the deep and growing achievement gap between socioeconomic groups that begins early and lasts through a student’s academic career.” There seems little question about the federal commitment to improving education. President George Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” was among the signature initiatives of his eight years in office, and federal funding for education had increased sharply under President Obama before the recent belt-tightening. College students in particular have been beneficiaries of growing federal aid. And Obama continues to be ambitious – in his January State of the Union address he called for a big expansion in pre-school education, which has shown some promise in closing the achievement gaps. The stakes are unquestionably high. In an advanced economy like the United States where economic growth is largely the result of innovation in products and processes, human talent is by far the most important ingredient. Immigration helps us import some of it, but the vast majority must be homegrown. If the United States can’t maintain its leadership in education, in the long run it will not remain a leader in anything else.

Emerging Voices features regular contributions from scholars and practitioners highlighting new research, thinking, and approaches to development challenges. This article is from Blair Glencorse, executive director of the Accountability Lab. He analyzes the problems plaguing Nepal’s colleges and universities and argues for higher education as a crucial concern on the post-2015 development agenda. The post-Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) framework is currently being negotiated among governments and civil society participants around the world. Unlike the previous goals, which emphasized universal primary education as a key aim, it is essential that any successor targets ensure a concomitant focus on tertiary education. The youth bulge is growing: young people between the ages of ten and twenty-four now constitute 25 percent of the global population, with most in the global south, and these youth must have the skills to manage governments, businesses, and civil society bodies. If they do not, political and economic transitions will be unsustainable. Encouragingly, a university, college, or vocational education is also increasingly seen by young people to be one of the most important opportunities available to them. It is a means to generate higher income, a way to better make sense of the world, and a step up on the ladder of social mobility. More and more young people are enrolled in tertiary education than ever before. The total is expected to rise to 262 million by 2025, according to Australian researchers, with nearly all of this growth in the developing world. The Himalayan country of Nepal is no exception. Over 55 percent of the population is under the age of 25 according to a recent census, and in the current academic year a massive 370,000 students enrolled at various levels of study at Tribhuvan University, the main public institution of higher education in the country. This should be a positive development; there is an infectious desire for learning among young Nepalis, and students have played a positive role in many of the key political changes that have defined Nepal’s historical progress. These have included the movement that led to democracy in 1990 and the People’s Movement in 2006 through which the monarchy was replaced with a republic. A closer look at current trends in higher education in Nepal is deeply worrying, however, and holds important lessons for the region, where similar dynamics are apparent in countries such as Pakistan and Bangladesh. Universities are woefully under-equipped to handle the size and the needs of the student body. At Tribhuvan University, there are often power cuts of up to twelve hours a day. There is no drinking water, clean bathrooms, or internet access on the main campus. There are not nearly enough classrooms to accommodate the huge number of students; libraries are sparse and completely outdated; and buildings are regularly burned down by disaffected groups. The bloated roster of professors means many are unpaid and unmotivated, and students are deeply unhappy. These problems are the result of the politics that has come to dominate the university system, with all hiring made on a political basis. As a result, many administrators act with impunity, refusing to deal with the most basic of problems, showing up to work late or not at all, and favoring certain students over others in everything from the awarding of scholarships to the allocation of housing. Politics can become deeply unaccountable and coercive, with university positions providing opportunities for patronage and corruption by political parties. These parties use students for their own ends, including frequent bandhs (strikes), which at times can shut down entire cities and lead to the frequent cancellation of classes, often indefinitely. Student elections were recently cancelled due to widely reported incidents of vote-buying, illegal admissions, and intimidation. Violence is also common, with hardline positions encouraged by larger political parties that reinforce stereotypes among frustrated Nepali students. In an environment of this sort, dialogue has been replaced with non-negotiable demands and common concerns are no longer amenable to collective action. The government has commissioned various reports about universities’ problems without much follow-up. Donors like the World Bank have some discrete projects, but conversations on campus indicate that these are seen as supply-driven and ownership by the universities is low. Other donors have largely stayed away, preferring to focus on high school education. This situation is a disservice to current students, who should be the next generation of Nepali leaders. Many are now deciding that the time and money needed to attend public colleges are not worth the low level of knowledge attained as a result. Through the Accountability Lab we have conducted hundreds of formal and informal meetings over the past year with student leaders, professors, administrators, and political parties at Tribhuvan University. It is clear that an initial four-step process is needed to address the problems that currently exist. First, the political parties must summon the courage to allow the university to become a de-politicized space for students to learn. Second, they must work with the university administration, student bodies, and professors to form a dialogue center through which issues can be discussed peacefully and constructively. Third, a durable code of conduct must be developed to govern behaviors on campus, with strong enforcement mechanisms. And fourth, a process must be put in place to streamline the university staff, ensure that hiring and promotion decisions are made on a transparent and fair basis, and provide authorities with the mandate and funds to carry out the university’s educational mission. These are not easy changes to make, of course, but it is essential that the focus of universities and colleges—in Nepal and elsewhere—is not politics or patronage but constructive learning. The MDGs got the focus on primary education right, but educated youngsters soon grow up to demand clear and fair opportunities for further study, which benefits both themselves and their societies. In the post-2015 era, we ignore them at our peril.

Last week on the Ask CFR Experts feature, I took on the question of how Zimbabwe and other African countries can best improve educational quality. Noting that educational failures are often due as much to corruption as to scarce resources, I recommended greater transparency in school expenditures. As I write: A simple but effective strategy to improve educational outcomes is budget transparency, which allows parents and students to hold officials accountable for spending resources wisely and teachers accountable for delivering services. Transparency means making information about educational expenditures widely available to parents and communities, so they can compare the resources promised with those that are actually delivered. You can read my full answer here. All answers in the Ask CFR Experts feature are available here.

This is a guest post by Owen Cylke. Mr. Cylke is a development professional and a retired senior foreign service officer with USAID. There has been increased discussion of late on repositioning development economics, structural issues, and the role of the state in the thinking and investments of developing and donor countries. Continental institutions in Africa, including the African Union Commission, African Development Bank, New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), and UN Economic Commission for Africa are rethinking the decades-long deference to the wisdom of the marketplace and the commercialization of its sectoral interests. This was recently reflected at a USAID Alumni Association forum in collaboration with the Woodrow Wilson Center. The forum examined the centrality of structural change to the success of the development endeavor in parts of Asia and Latin America, and it underscored the criticality of that same process to the development prospects for Africa. While a two hour moderated discussion is not a substitute for analytic rigor and research product, the discussion did reflect remarkable agreement and did suggest a coherent set of findings and recommendations. First, panelists urged renewed attention to development economics and processes–particularly in Africa where the crucial transition from an agricultural and rural focus to something more receptive to off-farm and urban action lags behind all other developing regions. Second, panelists highlighted the factors that make the transition an urban imperative. These include the need for off-farm, formal employment, such opportunities being historically associated with certain patterns of urbanization. A marked increase in economic productivity, where high density is typically associated with increasing levels of productivity. The development of economic engines that can support higher and more sustained rates of economic growth. Again, both the historical record and statistical evidence substantiate their critical role for structural change. And platforms for providing the efficient delivery of health, education, and other human services; higher density populations enabling more efficient service delivery. Further it was concluded that agricultural and urban sectors need to expand the range of agricultural concern beyond production and productivity to its equally crucial function in the promotion of structural change. And to expand the range of urban concerns beyond the provision of traditionally understood municipal services to its unique possibility as a platform and provider of off-farm employment, economic productivity, and economic growth. Specific recommendations are reflected in the presentations of the panelists, nevertheless in summary: re-engage in development economics and processes–noting neglect in the area of overall strategy design over the past several decades. Re-orient rural development towards spatial and territorial approaches, with a focus on regional development, urban functions in rural development, and market town and secondary city development. Maintain support for agricultural programs, albeit with greater attention to family farms, staple crops, resource management, and rural-urban linkages (and with particular attention to off-farm activity and employment). And increase the focus on rural-urban linkages, small town development, the urbanization process, and the economic functions of urban centers.

The Obama administration’s “Joining Forces” initiative hopes to decrease the high rate of unemployment for new (post-9/11) vets.

The University of KwaZulu-Natal has announced that starting next year, all entering students must study Zulu. Zulu is spoken by perhaps a quarter of South Africa’s population and the extensiveness of its use is probably second only to Afrikaans. However, it is an exceptionally difficult language for adults to learn, and few whites, coloreds, or Asians do so. The university says the new requirement is designed to promote nation-building. The University of KwaZulu-Natal is the result of the merger of the apartheid-era whites-only University of Natal with the Asians-only University of Durban-Westville. The merger was part of the effort to dismantle the educational structure of apartheid. The university now has a large black enrollment. Thomson-Reuters’ “The World University Rankings” lists only four universities in Africa, all of which are in South Africa: the University of Cape Town, University of the Witwatersrand (“Wits”) in Johannesburg, the University of Stellenbosch (traditionally Afrikaans), and the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Thomson-Reuters ranks the University of Cape Town at 113, Wits between 226 and 250, University of Stellenbosch between 252 and 275, and KwaZulu-Natal between 351 and 400. It ranks the California Institute of Technology, Stanford, and Oxford as the top three in the world. Everybody involved in educational policy understands the limitations of such ranking systems, but they do indicate something of relative reputations. It remains to be seen what the consequences will be of the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s bold language experiment. Will it impact on the numbers of non-Zulu speakers who matriculate?

In the litany of Washington debates about current and future U.S. economic competitiveness, demographics is consistently placed on the advantage side of the U.S. competitiveness ledger. A broad view of the macro demographic trends—taking into account only population growth and age-profile—would indeed seem to support this claim. Yet this ignores other U.S. trends that could strike a blow at worker productivity, undermining the potential economic advantage of favorable demographics. Economists use a handy formula to roughly calculate GDP growth: labor force growth x productivity growth. This means that to keep an economy growing, either the labor force or productivity need to expand (or there must be an expansion of one to compensate for any contraction of the other). A population’s age-profile matters, too. It’s best to have the bulk of a population be of working age. That way there are fewer nonworking, and therefore unproductive, children and elderly putting a burden on the economy. At least compared to major economic competitors, the basic contours of U.S. demographics appear favorable, satisfying the labor force component of the GDP growth formula. Thanks to immigration and a lofty birthrate, the number of Americans aged 25 to 64 will continue to grow at a slow and steady pace for decades, with the age-profile relatively stable and concentrated in those ages. Most major European and East Asian countries face the (historically unprecedented) prospect of steadily contracting workforces and sharply older populations within a few decades. China and South Korea are in especially unenviable positions; thanks to stunning declines in fertility, their populations will age faster than any in human history. But a more complete telling of the U.S. labor force position is less rosy. What matters more than raw working-age population numbers is the share of the working-age population that is actually working or seeking work, otherwise known as the labor force participation rate. Here the United States compares less well, especially for men. Employed Americans do indeed work longer hours and take fewer vacations than employed Europeans.  But as Nick Eberstadt lays out in his superb book A Nation of Takers, American men in their late thirties are actually more likely to go on permanent vacation; their labor force participation rate is lower than their counterparts’ in nearly every European country—including in debt-riddled and welfare-bloated Greece. Productivity growth—the other component of the GDP growth equation—could be more difficult to muster in the United States as well. Productivity improves when fewer inputs are needed per unit of output. Smart, capable, vigorous workers (i.e., good human capital) help drive productivity higher. In other words, it’s not just the size of the labor force, but the quality of the labor force that counts. In the 2000s, the productivity growth of the U.S. labor force was more or less on par with that of the Japanese and European labor force. That may soon change. The U.S. population is losing its edge on educational attainment. According to the OECD, Americans aged 55 to 64 are among the best-educated in their age group in the developed world in terms of high school and college completion. Americans aged 24 to 35 are solidly in the middle-of-the-pack. And uniquely among nations, the cohort entering the U.S. labor force is no more educated than the cohort currently retiring. Health trends are also worse in the United States. Around 1950, Americans, and particularly American white women, were among the longest-lived and healthiest in the world. Now it’s flipped. A recently released report by the Institute of Medicine found that, compared against sixteen other “peer” countries, Americans have among the worst life expectancy and health at every age and income level. According to demographer S. Jay Olshansky, the United States could be the first rich country to experience declining average life expectancy—which at present is reserved to former Soviet countries and Sub-Saharan Africa. Least-educated white Americans are already experiencing a drop in life expectancy, and at a rate that is astounding demographers. In a less understood trend—and one which is certainly less reported on in the media—Americans’ romantic relationships are comparatively unstable, with real negative consequences for American children. Studies have shown that relationship transitions (i.e., when a parent switches from one partner to another) are especially damaging to children—even more than being raised by a single mother without any partners. Americans have historically married more, divorced more, and have had shorter-term cohabitations than Europeans. But the differences in relationship stability are larger now than they used to be.  In a study from the mid-1990s, 12 percent of American children had experienced three or more parental partnerships by age fifteen. The next-highest, in Sweden, was just 3 percent. It is likely, if not certain, that the gap has widened in the past two decades. Taken together, these trends—male withdrawal from the workforce, stagnating educational attainment, worsening health, and increasingly unstable living arrangements for children—could well take the edge off the U.S. demographic advantage.

Emerging Voices features contributions from scholars and practitioners highlighting new research, thinking, and approaches to development challenges. This article is from Sir Michael Barber, who is the U.K. Department for International Development’s (DfID) (unpaid) special representative on education in Pakistan, the chief education advisor at Pearson, and from 2001 to 2005, was the chief advisor on delivery to Prime Minister Tony Blair. In the article he discusses an educational reform program he helps lead in Pakistan and the broader debate over the effective delivery of foreign aid. In many countries, there are two camps: those who want less aid because it is ineffective, and those who want more because it is fundamental to global justice. I propose an alternative to this fruitless debate. I support government’s commitment to aid but surely the aim should be to end it in time, not because it has failed but because it was demonstrably successful. This is what we in the development community should want, and it is also what visionary leaders in the developing world, including Pakistan, want. They look forward to their country succeeding without aid. In the meantime they want support that is effective and demonstrates results. This demands a radical and rigorous approach to aid. The Punjab Education Reform Roadmap, which I have been leading along with Shahbaz Sharif, who recently left office as chief minister of the Pakistani province of Punjab, suggests a way forward. When we set the goals for Punjab some donors accused us of being “too ambitious” and “too urgent.” We pleaded guilty. The risks of moving too slowly in Pakistan are much greater than the risks of moving too fast. When we began implementation of the roadmap in August 2011, only 82.8 percent of enrolled students attended school each day, only 80.7 percent of teachers attended class, and only 68.9 percent of facilities had functioning electricity, drinking water, toilets, and boundary walls. The results after two years speak for themselves: as of December 2012, student attendance was up to 92.1 percent, teacher attendance reached 92.1 percent, and 90.9 percent of facilities were up to standards. This translates to approaching 1.5 million extra children now enrolled in school, and another million, who had been formally enrolled but rarely turned up, attending school every day. Schools serving three million children have had their facilities repaired. More than 90 percent of teachers are now present every day, with new lesson plans and coaching to help them teach and new textbooks for every pupil from next month. In addition, the program has given over 140,000 out-of-school children from poor families vouchers that they can take to any registered private school. Non-government providers have been encouraged to set up new schools where government provision is weak or non-existent. It is one of the largest voucher programs in the world, and a model of effective public-private partnership in education. There is evidence of improved outcomes, too. Two years ago Punjab-India and Punjab-Pakistan were level-pegging; now Pakistan is out in front. Perhaps most important of all, more and more people in Punjab believe that this time, after decades of failure, they will succeed. How was this achieved? To start, we set clear, ambitious targets for each district and the whole province and developed a system to monitor progress in real time. By collecting data from all 60,000 government schools monthly, we’ve been able to check regularly whether we are on track to achieving these goals. By focusing on school-level data, we were able to tell district leaders exactly which schools are lagging and even which teachers did not attend school in the prior month. This allows the systems leaders to immediately take action to resolve issues and improve performance.  We’ve avoided the classic error of focusing purely on enrollment and ignoring quality. Second, we established routines to review progress and ensure a constant focus on implementation. In each conversation, we ask officials at all levels of the system whether they are on track to meet their goals and how they respond when they are not. Where they are off track we offer a combination of pressure and support. As a result, we’ve established a system of sharp accountability and tackled corruption head-on by insisting on merit-based appointments. Since the start of the roadmap 81,000 teachers have been hired on merit. Most important of all, the roadmap was never a separate aid initiative; it was a partnership with the committed chief minister, Shahbaz Sharif, to improve the entire schools system, which serves over twenty million children. The aid money certainly helped to bring about this success, but aid is under 5 percent of Punjab’s total expenditure on education. The real keys have been the program’s design, based on good evidence of what works around the world, and the relentless focus on implementation. Through floods, outbreaks of dengue fever, and the many crises that afflict Pakistan, the routine tasks of implementation--checking impact at the front lines, reviewing effectiveness, and adjusting accordingly--have continued. We’ve persisted to deliver the change that was needed. We’ve refined our approach throughout, but we’ve never compromised on our vision or the ambitious goals that we set at the start. We’re starting to see the impact of the “science of delivery,” which Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank, describes as fundamental to delivering development outcomes. The success in Punjab contributes to the evidence of what works. For all the gains, Punjab’s education system remains far short of real quality. The progress is far from irreversible. Although we have moved with breathtaking speed, it is not fast enough. After this month’s elections, Punjab’s new leaders will need to continue what has been started for years to come. Yes, real change is a slog. In the meantime there are three clear lessons for aid policy. First, the case for aid can be sustained only if every penny is spent well. Second, we know quite a bit, and are learning more, about the “science of delivery” required to deliver development aid effectively. Third, if we get the partnership for reform right with developing country governments, transferring the entire responsibility for development, including funding, onto their taxpayers will become possible as well as desirable.

One of the biggest criticisms leveled at Mexico is the lack of social mobility. A new report published by Mexico City’s Centro de Estudios Espinosa Yglesias (CEEY) takes a look at just how mobile (and immobile) Mexican society really is—revealing that there are both reasons for worry and for cautious optimism. On the bright side, there is a significant amount of mobility in Mexico’s middle three economic quartiles. In contrast, few of the richest and the poorest leave their origins behind (with a full 50 percent staying put on each end of the economic ladder). So what matters? Education seems to be vital. Here family is paramount, both in terms of expectations and resources, leaving many stuck on the bottom rungs. This is particularly for advanced degrees, where educated parents are more likely to push their children to follow them off to college and beyond. And their children, the report shows, generally live up to these expectations. The study also shows that attending private elementary schools matters. Here perhaps the news is getting better, and though Mexico has not yet fixed its weak public school system, private school education has expanded. Mexico now boasts some 45,000 private schools—roughly one third of all educational institutes. And while many question the quality of some of these establishments, kids attending private elementary schools were much more likely to complete their studies and attend college. The study also shows big differences between men and women, with women being more mobile than men—for good and for bad. Still, where you come from influences expectations and outcomes, with upper class women working (and earning) more than their poorer counterparts. Parental education also plays a role. For women whose parents were well educated, roughly two-thirds were employed, compared to 44 percent whose parents had not completed primary school. In international comparisons, Mexico falls far behind industrialized countries, such as those in the European Union. But studies are more mixed when comparing Mexico to its Latin American neighbors (depending on which measuring methods were used and during which time periods). A 2013 World Bank report found Mexico to have one of the lowest proportions of upwardly-moving social "climbers" in Latin America, but other studies that instead track individuals over several periods of time rank Mexico’s mobility at the top of the region. And a 2012 study by the Universidad de los Andes found that while overall levels of mobility were higher in Chile, intergenerational mobility was progressing much faster in Mexico than in either Chile or Colombia. Social mobility matters not just for individuals and families but also for the broader economy. As a 2010 OECD report puts it, countries with lower levels of social mobility are more likely to “misallocate human skills and talents.” This diminishes motivation, productivity, innovation, and, in the aggregate, economic growth. So what can Mexico do? Following through and pushing further the recent education reforms, so that the vast disparity between public and private schools diminishes, is a start. The report too calls for affirmative action programs for women in schools and workplaces and for expanding the number of secondary schools and colleges. Other reforms to reduce the size of the informal sector, and to spread access to financing so that those with good ideas or companies can begin or expand their operations will also help, ensuring that the talented, motivated, and hard-working get a chance to rise.

There are many remarkable findings in the polling cited by Andrew Kohut and Michael Dimock in their new working paper for Renewing America, entitled "Resilient American Values: Optimism in an Era of Growing Inequality and Economic Difficulty," but the most remarkable I thought is a set of side-by-side pie charts. In the first, the Pew Research Center asked Americans if they “admire people who are rich,” and just 27 percent said yes. But then Americans were asked if they “admire people who get rich by working hard,” and fully 88 percent said they agreed. That huge discrepancy underscores the striking conclusion of the paper: After five years of recession, weak growth, and high unemployment, Americans are hurting economically, they are angry over what they see as unfairness and lack of opportunity in the economic system, but the country’s core values remain remarkably intact. As the authors write, based on decades of polling results: “There is little indication that beliefs in individualism, the efficacy of hard work, and the potential for personal progress have been seriously eroded by the economic body blow the American public has absorbed.” The findings are important because they would seem to indicate that, for all the enormous challenges the United States faces, a growing class-based values divide is not one of them. Sociologist Charles Murray, for instance, in his detailed study Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010, suggests that beliefs in hard work, family, God, and community have broken down among poorer Americans even as they continue to be embraced by wealthier Americans. If this is the case, then rebuilding those values could take generations. But Kohut and Dimock find little support for that thesis in opinion polls. Wealthier and poorer Americans, for instance, are in complete agreement on the importance of hard work, and are similarly critical of what they see as growing dependence on government assistance. Religious feeling appears to be at least as strong among poorer Americans as among their wealthier counterparts, as is commitment to community, charity, and volunteering. Wealthier Americans do, as Murray suggests, appear more committed to the traditional institution of marriage than poorer Americans, perhaps because of the growing prevalence of single parent households. But on most questions about the importance of marriage the gaps are small. The study also reveals surprisingly little class resentment, despite growing income inequality in the United States. Asked, for instance, whether the United States benefits from having a class of rich people, two-thirds of Americans said yes in a 2012 Gallup survey, unchanged from opinions two decades ago. It would be easy to misread the survey findings as somehow suggesting that Americans think the economic status quo is just fine. That would be far from the truth. Indeed, they are angry about a great many things—such as  a tax system in which the wealthy are not seen as paying their fair share, and government bailouts that they see as rescuing politically powerful Wall Street bankers and profligate home buyers. What the public sees, the authors write, “is a greater lack of fairness in public policy, which increasingly is seen as favoring the rich and powerful rather than promoting opportunities for people like them.” "Indeed, what the general public wants,” they write, “is not a war on the rich, but more policies that increased their prospects to get ahead.” And there is nothing remarkable about that. It is what most Americans have long believed.