More of the same on education

David Broder offers up more of the same in the Washington Post. He praises some proposals from a couple of think tanks on how to improve education. (The full report can be found here.) It is mostly the usual mixed bag. Broder summarizes (in italics, with my comments following):

? Lengthening the school year beyond the standard 180 days and reducing summer vacation time, when many students forget what they have just learned.
I would be nice to know if it would actually make a difference. The only evidence I know of on the point is paper by J?Steffen Pischke of LSE (full paper here) on shortening the German school year.
I find that the short school years increased grade repetition in primary school, and led to fewer students attending higher secondary school tracks. On the other hand, the short school years had no adverse e?ect on earnings and employment later in life.
Not much of an endorsement.
? Extending the school day by incorporating meaningful after-school programs.
I would have thought that just keeping kids off the streets would be a good idea, although I was startled to discover this study of third graders suggesting that day care was worse for children than going home to their mother, going to a sitter, or going home on their own.
? Providing preschool programs for 3- and 4-year-olds and all-day kindergartens.
Does getting kids into school earlier help? Probably not, and it may well hurt. Peter Fredriksson and Bjorn Ockert make the strong case.
Using a rich data set for the entire Swedish population born 1935-84, we find that children who start school at an older age do better in school and go on to have more education than their younger peers. Children from families with weaker educational tradition have more to win from starting school later. The long-run earnings effects are positive but small. However, since starting school later entails the opportunity cost of entering the labor market later, the net earnings effect over the entire life-cycle is negative.
The less optimistic results are from Jill Cannon, Alison Jacknowitz and Gary Painter.
there are initial benefits for students and the mothers of students that attend full-day kindergarten, but that these differences largely evaporate by third grade. The only effect of full-day kindergarten attendance on boys is to increase the prevalence of severe external behavioral problems, whereas there is some evidence that girls who attend full-day kindergarten have increases in math scores that persist through third grade. Finally, attending full-day kindergarten is found to have no additional effect on students in families with income below the poverty threshold, despite claims by some advocates that full-day programs are beneficial for the most disadvantaged students.
Similar pessimism comes from Katherine Magnuson, Christopher Ruhm, and Jane Waldfogel.
We find that prekindergarten increases reading and mathematics skills at school entry, but also increases behavioral problems and reduces self-control. Furthermore, the effects of prekindergarten on skills largely dissipate by the spring of first grade, although the behavioral effects do not.
The next recommendation really impressed me.
? Strengthening the high-school curriculum to ensure that graduates are ready for college or advanced technical training, and bridging the gap between 12th grade and further education.
I wish I had thought of that. The next proposal is to get rid of competition between the states.
? Drafting voluntary national standards for all levels of classes, a needed improvement on current widely varying state-by-state standards.
Nothing like a single standard to get rid of innovation. And to worsen the situation, the next proposal gets rid of accountability.
? Improving student assessments beyond the current tests and ensuring assistance to schools and students who are lagging.
The first part says to do better. The second part says to give more to failing schools.
The next recommendation is at least serious effort by a left wing think tank to take on the teachers’ unions.

? Upgrading teacher training and providing pay incentives for classroom performance and rewards for top teachers assigned to struggling schools.
Expecting teachers to know something about the subject they teach would surely be an improvement. But measuring performance in teaching is difficult, both conceptually and in implementing it, and is unlikely to suceed without competition between schools.
The last recommendation is similarly depressing.

? Building more community schools, where social services for parents are located in the same building as classrooms and families are mobilized to help students succeed.
In other words, because we are talking about social services for parents, the recommendation is to build more community schools means less choice for parents. Even Mother Jones has something good to say about parental choice, although for a more serious analysis look to Caroline Hoxby.