Educational Segregation 
By Bruce Shields

Yet another battle will be fought in the Vermont legislature over education in 2008. Costs soaring at nearly triple the inflation rate for more than 25 years will surely be one element of the struggle. The observation that cost for one segment of the economy is rising faster than the inflation rate is merely a shorthand way of expressing the choice to emphasize one endeavor over others. Vermont’s top inflation leaders are public education, higher education, state government, health care, and prisons. Given this list, it should be no surprise that losers in this balance have been private sector sources of employment.

Where free market principles operate, most enterprise follows a particular economic trajectory, well illustrated by agriculture. Two centuries ago, most people worked directly in agriculture simply to secure basic food, fuel, shelter, and clothing. As technology in agriculture developed, productivity improved, and agriculture dominated the US economy. Then factories were built to supply machines for farmers, railroads were built to move the produce, schools and colleges to train future farm workers. Productivity soared, ancillary businesses came to dominate the economy, giving the impression that agriculture was shrinking. In truth, based on the basic value of farm produce, agriculture has done nothing but expand since the 1820’s. But as a share of the total economy, it has diminished to its present small proportion.

Though healthcare costs have increased almost on a logarithmic scale, life expectancy and quality of life for Vermonters has also increased. Likewise, higher education’s cost increases have been accompanied by a general increase in wage levels, arguably as a result of the accumulation of improved knowledge and training. Public elementary and secondary education have increased in cost, both total cost and per pupil cost, even though school populations have been shrinking. Unlike other types of enterprise, no improvements in productivity or efficiency or outcomes have been experienced.

Indeed, as the cost of public education has increased the effectiveness of that education has diminished. A surrogate indicator of the failing educational attainments in Vermont is the soaring share of another government enterprise: prison population. Our prisons increasingly are populated by the evidence of the failure of our schools. Even worse for the long term health of our society, the discards of our school system are overwhelming poor young men. Our prisoners predominantly are males from the lowest quintile of Vermonts ranked by income. That is true both of their status at the time of their arrest, and of the families in which they are reared.

The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation has ranked US schools according to the clearness and attainability of the educational standards enforced by each state. Vermont ranks low, with a score of 32 out of 50, despite having the most costly schools in the US. One basis for this ranking is the score achieved by students in the National Educational Assessment Program [NAEP] testing. The Fordham narrative concerning the NAEP rankings observes that "state NAEP scores are tied most directly to the state’s demographics."

That is to say, students from higher socio-economic cadres score better on tests than their classmates who live in poverty.

Surely the entire reason for public education is to break the linkage between poverty and education. Economic data shows a strong correlation between years of schooling and lifetime income levels, and a modest correlation between rank in school and income.

Vermont education as presently constituted is reinforcing economic segregation, and creating an ever sharper divide between the haves and have nots. The failure of our schools helps fill our prisons with economically disabled young men. The present governance of our schools is designed to make life comfortable for employees, and not to focus on a successful outcome for the consumers of education.  Vermont schools should not be permitted to continue to enforce economic segregation.
 

Bruce P. Shields
Wolcott