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Myths of education reform
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Many things political candidates are present as self-evident truths are simply false. Many people believe these myths, despite the evidence, just because the sound good, or are likely to be true. Let me point out to some:
1. More schooling equals more education. Not true, the number of years or hours spent in school does not necessarily reflect the level of education. Quality of schooling is more important than quantity, and quality is very hard to measure.
2. Better resources (more funding) leads to better education. There is no evidence to support this claim, although many people tried to prove it.
3. Smaller class sizes improve student achievement. While there is some controversy about evidence, there is no clear proof that reducing class size works. Even if it is a factor, it is likely to be a very weak one.
4. Experienced teachers produce better results. Teachers with higher educational level produce higher results. Both are not proven. The teacher quality is actually very important; better teachers produce much higher results than others, but teacher quality should be measured directly; you cannot tell a good teacher from a bad one by years of experience or the kind of degree she or he has.
Interestingly, many policies are implemented without clear evidence that similar policies work elsewhere. For example, the accountability movement in the United States seem to bring modest improvements, but accountability reforms in individual states and the national No Child Left Behind law were implemented before this evidence was available. Much of educational reform is done on blind faith, just because it sounds good. As the political season is reaching its boiling point, the public should demand evidence, and not compare candidates on how well they speak. Demand evidence.
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