Kids and culture

I'm frequently reminded of a story involving Milton Friedman when he visited Sweden. Supposedly a Swedish official bragged to Friedman that, "In Sweden we have almost no poverty." In reply Friedman said, "Funny, among Swedish-Americans we also have almost no poverty."

The story of course illustrates the role of culture. I was reminded of it when I came across this recent Wall Street Journal article which, along with this blog post from my friend Zain, got me thinking about the performance of our schools. Listening to the public debate one would think that the quality of public education is strictly a product of the amount of money spent. The more money spent the more children learn. Although intuitive, I think some simple research proves that it is far from this simple. There are plenty of examples of high-spending districts producing poor performance, as this 1999 Heritage Foundation report notes:

The latest American Legislative Exchange Council Report Card on American Education underscores this conclusion. 2 Typical was New Jersey, which had the highest per-pupil expenditure ($10,241) in the 1996-1997 school year and the second smallest pupil-to-teacher ratio. New Jersey received nearly 50 percent of its public education funding from federal sources, yet its students ranked 39th on the 1998 Scholastic Aptitude Test. Conversely, Minnesota, which ranked 27th in per-pupil spending ($5,826), received the highest ranking in student achievement on the same test.

I think it is safe to say that school performance is due to more than just the amount of money spent. I would wager that if DC public schools doubled their budget the effect would be negligible. Why? Because the kids, as this story illustrates, are hellians. How can learning take place with sub-par (in terms of behavior and motivation) students?

Look at the WSJ article. Essentially what took place is that as schools became more Asian and less white test scores went up. As far as I can tell the amount spent by the district on the schools didn't change. The teachers didn't change. Really all that changed was that the students become more willing to learn. And why is that? My guess is that they were raised in a culture and environment that places an emphasis on education and academic achievement.

Think about that. The implications are pretty stunning. If we really want to fix what's wrong with our schools we have to start by fixing the kids (who, as Zain points out, are spoiled brats). And to fix the kids you have to first fix the parents. How do you do that? And what politician is going to start telling voters that the solution to improving public schools is that they need to start being better parents?

Related reading: What's holding Black kids back?