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What Amazon can Teach us About U.S. Education

By Jeanne Allen & Kara Kerwin

You’d never know from the Programme for International Assessment (PISA) that the U.S. was in an era of education reform. On a 1,000-point scale, the U.S. has 481 points in math, behind most other industrialized nations, and reading remains stagnant. Last fall the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) painted a similar picture of stagnation for 4^th and 8^th graders. From government leaders to heads of major education organizations, just about everyone understands this data poses a problem, but seem unwilling to turn it around.You see it in their newsletters and annual reports; you hear it in speeches when they highlight accomplishments in reaching so many children.

These claims might be valid, if Arne Duncan didn’t weakly preface his PISA remarks with what he called “signs of progress,” within the lagging 2013 NAEP scores.

Diane Ravitch, the most prominent of the go-along-get-along gang, said the outcry over lagging scores was an attempt by Duncan to, “whip up national hysteria about our standing in the international league tables.”

Then there’s Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, who always pushes people and challenges them to new heights. He recently shocked the media (and probably a few government officials) by saying he was contemplating a new Drone-delivery system. It’s no surprise then that he would value charter schools, which he backed in Washington state, that are breaking conventional wisdom about how children learn and what they need early to solve our educational ills.

Imagine Bezos as Secretary of Education:

“So let me get this straight – we’ve spent $300 billion each year on education and we’re still behind on International tests?“

“How many charter schools do we have nationwide, 6,000? How do we get 60,000 in the next 3 years?”

“I won’t attend a meeting or listen to another legislator until we have turned every failing school into a successful provider in public, charter or private sectors.”

In other words, he’d bring in the policy equivalent of a drone.

There have been dents made in the public education monopoly, which is still a centralized, top-down cartel of huge proportion. Buoyed with the opportunity to choose, parents and schools challenged the status quo and gave government leaders a reason to make changes to public schools, teacher evaluation, and  early childhood programs and standards. Such progress was made possible by a competitive market of successful schools of choice, which today serve nearly half of all students living in the Nation’s Capital. When only 30 percent of low-income Americans report satisfaction with their local public school, clearly there’s more work to be done.

Too many people settle for a few points as progress. Few leaders and advocates  know of the hard work that went into creating pockets of success. It’s no wonder only 24 percent of Americans approve of their state legislator’s record on education, according to our recent poll. Those who live where there is progress become content with what’s already been accomplished. They want recognition and are fast becoming the establishment they once sought to depose.

Dennis Van Roekel, head of the nation’s largest teacher union, says PISA results are evidence that teacher evaluations in this country are not working, despite performance-based evaluations are not in place in any substantive way anywhere. Meanwhile, Bezos fired his customer relations VP when he learned that the wait time for phone service was not one minute, which had been reported, but actually more than 4 minutes.

The reason we have poor results is because this nation is not making the changes we have seen succeed on a small scale. The publicly accountable charter schools result in student achievement when they are plentiful, free from rules, regulations, union contracts, are open by choice and have money flowing in equal parts to their coffers. Bill Clinton called for 10,000 just 10 years ago, we only have 6,000, even though charter schools have earned a 73 percent favorability rating with the American people. Vouchers work by giving parents power to control the dollars allocated to provide education to their children, yet  supporters argue whether it will ever be politically or legally feasible to do more, rather than changing the political and legal realities. High standards with high stakes tests work, as evidenced by Massachusetts’ achievement gains. Despite this evidence, there is a backlash fueled by wealthy parents who value their children’s comfort over toughening them up with challenges,

The kids who grew up in the Trophy generation are fast becoming the adults who expect pats on the back for predicting rain not making it.

If only Amazon could do education, too. Bring on the drones.

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Jeanne Allen is a Senior Fellow and president emeritus and serves on the Board of Directors of The Center for Education Reform. She is President of The Allen Company and currently writes and speaks regularly all over the country on education and cultural issues.

Kara Kerwin is President of The Center for Education Reform, a K-12 education policy and advocacy organization based in Washington, DC.