Waiting for utopia: the New York Times education columnist believes in education reform. He just doesn't think it has much to do with schools

Education Next, Summer, 2002 by David W. Murray

IT'S EASY TO TELL when someone is in the grip of a Big Idea That Explains Everything. Tunnel vision sets in; every analysis, whatever the topic, becomes an occasion for the grand theory to appear. Evidence is read and supplied selectively, in such a way that the theory remains unscathed. Skepticism is deployed selectively as well. Findings that comport with the Big Idea are held to a relaxed standard, while the work of critics is subjected to withering scrutiny.

Richard Rothstein, author of the New York Times's widely read "Lessons" column, a weekly commentary on education issues, frequently exhibits these symptoms. His Big Idea is that economic forces, especially inequality and poverty, largely determine the outcome of American social projects--including attempts at education reform. The effect of this obsession is two-fold. First, his writings display a factual carelessness, suggesting that details hardly matter if one possesses a higher truth. Second, nearly every engagement with issues of schooling, testing, standards, and teaching becomes an occasion to reassert the primacy of the economic factor.

Rothstein believes that most contemporary criticism of the public schools is misplaced. The main problems lie not with the schools, he claims, but with the injustices associated with the American economic system. It isn't a lack of competition in the public school system, antiquated hiring and compensation systems, or a dearth of solid research on educational methods that depresses student achievement; it's an economic system that allows for large differences in income and wealth. As a result, to Rothstein's mind, education reform won't be effective without far broader social reforms.

The Sky Isn't Falling

Rothstein is committed to the view that no crisis exists in American education, that all the critics are merely Cassandras trying to scare the public into accepting their pet reforms. His statistical gymnastics are used most often in the service of defending current school practices against most reform proposals, usually by denying the need for reform in the first place. Thus Rothstein's explanation for falling SAT scores is not a decline in education quality, but an increase in the number and the diversity of test takers. Says Rothstein, in an August 2000 column: "Interpreting the SAT is more complex than it seems. SAT trends would reflect school quality changes only if every 18-year-old took the test. Not all do, Average scores are affected by who takes the SAT. If only the brightest seniors take it, averages are higher. If more lower-ranked seniors aspire to college and take the test, this could indicate better performance by schools, but still depress the average."

The claim that slipping scores result from a changed demographic (and hence could even be good news) has surfaced repeatedly in the writings of education commentators such as Gerald Bracey, but it is demonstrably false. Washington Post economics columnist Robert Samuelson summarized the matter in a 1994 column by noting: "The change in the student population preceded the drop in test scores. Between 1951 and 1963, the number of test takers went from 81,000 to nearly 1 million; test scores rose slightly' Moreover, the percentage of test takers remained relatively constant between 1972 and 1984 (see Figure 1). There were still a million test takers in 1985, the first year in which test scores showed a small uptick after 19 years of decline. Scores have been flat or slightly improved since then, with math scores returning to their levels of 30 years ago, but failing to reach their mid-1960s apex.

Changes in the composition of the test-raking pool don't explain the decline in test scores either. Studies by the Educational Testing Service and others have showed, in the words of Robert Samuelson, that "the main declines occurred among whites and could not be explained by changes in student's gender, economic class, or parental education." This analysis was seconded by Harvard sociologist Christopher Jencks, who pointed out that the SAT scores of advantaged white males have also exhibited a steep decline.

Yet Rothstein, exactly one year later, parroted his earlier claims. His reaction to the release of the 2001 scores, which showed no improvement over the previous year and hence were termed "stable" by the College Board, was to write, "Stable in this case does nor mean unimproved. Hidden in the data is more hopeful news than most people would expect. These tests are voluntary. If only high achievers take them, average scores mean one thing. But if a broader range of students takes them, the results must be interpreted differently. The number taking the tests has in fact grown a lot.... It is remarkable that averages gained at all while the rest-taking base was expanding."

Again, in an October 2001 column, the familiar refrain reappeared in a rebuttal of the 1983 Nation at Risk report. The authors, we are told, "misunderstood the decline in test scores. College Board results had dropped, but that was due to the growth in college-going ambition. The SAT was no longer taken only by top students, and so average scores of test takers naturally fell."