Higher Teacher Salaries, Smaller Classes Largely Ineffective in Education. Here's What Works.
Inside-Sources
By InsideSources.com
Published 10 months ago on
May 25, 2023
Royalty-free stock photo ID: 1676706823 Portrait of preschool kid using tablet for his homework,Soft focus of Child doing homework by using digital tablet searching information on internet,E-learning or Home schooling education concept Portrait of preschool kid using tablet for his homework,Soft focus of Child doing homework by using digital tablet searching information on internet,E-learning or Home schooling education concept A

Share

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

One thing that taxpayers and politicians agree on practically everywhere is that more money should be spent on children’s education. This seems like a no-brainer: better education means kids get a better start in life. But we need to be careful. Many popular educational investments deliver little or no learning, while we rarely hear about the most effective investments.

Bjorn Lomborg

InsideSources.com
Opinion

In the early 2000s, “One Laptop Per Child” was touted as a revolutionary game-changer in education with the support of charismatic leaders and politicians. It was supposed to be “the laptop that saved the world.” Yet, when the policy was finally evaluated, there were “no impacts on academic achievement or cognitive skills” whatsoever.

Indeed, spending a fortune on well-intentioned initiatives that deliver little or no learning is easy. India increased spending per primary school pupil by 71 percent over just seven years, but reading and math test scores declined sharply. Indonesia doubled education spending to pay teachers more and achieve the lowest class sizes in the world, yet a large, randomized controlled study showed that this had absolutely no effect on student learning.

Costly and Ineffective Strategies are Norm

In fact, the approaches taken most often by governments — increasing salaries for teachers, lowering class sizes and building more schools — are costly and do little or nothing for learning. Yet, they are often the go-to solutions for international pledges like the education promises in the Sustainable Development Goals. These expansive goals have been agreed to by all governments globally, but their 2030 education promises are impossibly ambitious. On current best trends, we’ll be at least a quarter-century late.

Indeed, the world is failing across all its promises, from hunger and poverty, over climate and corruption to health and inequality. The reason is clear: politicians decided to promise everything. The current global priorities include an impossible 169 promises. Having 169 priorities is indistinguishable from having none.

This year, the world will be at halftime for its 2030 promises, yet it will be nowhere near halfway. It is time to identify and prioritize the most effective policies. The Copenhagen Consensus think tank is doing precisely that: Together with several Nobel laureates and more than a hundred leading economists, we have been working for years to identify where each dollar can do the best.

The problem is urgent for the poorer half of the world. Children are primarily in school but learn little. Of nearly half a billion primary school children, almost 80 percent are not learning minimal reading and maths skills. Instead of unrealistically promising hundreds of billions of dollars to achieve little or no extra learning, we should look for smart and effective solutions first.

Our new peer-reviewed research shows that two affordable policies can make an amazing difference.

The first proven approach helps pupils learn more effectively. Almost universally, school classes put all 9-year-olds in one grade, 10-year-olds in another, etc. But many of the children in each of those classes are either far behind and ready to give up or far ahead and bored.

Tablet Teaching Proves Effective

An effective way of addressing this is using tablets to teach students one hour daily. With existing educational software, the tablet quickly assesses the level of the student and starts teaching precisely at that level. For one hour a day, that student is taught at his or her right level, boosting learning. After just one year, testing shows that the student has learned what would typically have taken three full years.

The second proven strategy is “structured pedagogy,” helping teachers teach better. A trial in Kenya was so successful that the approach was adopted for the whole country. With a full year of semi-structured teaching plans, coaching and encouraging text messages, the project helps teachers provide more engaging and helpful instruction. Studies show this delivers learning equivalent to almost one extra year of schooling.

Each extra year of learning boosts a child’s lifelong prospects and benefits a country’s entire economy. Enacting these two policies across the poor half of the world would cost less than $10 billion. But it would deliver long-term economic productivity growth worth more than $600 billion. Every dollar returns an outstanding $65 of social benefits.

This is much better than current promises to spend hundreds of billions on initiatives that do little or nothing to improve learning.

Improving the futures of children is indeed a no-brainer. Considering our scarce resources, we should prioritize spending $10 billion on proven, effective approaches and deliver on the most important education pledge of all: radically improved learning.

About the Writer

Bjorn Lomborg is the president of the Copenhagen Consensus and a visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He wrote this for InsideSources.com

Make Your Voice Heard

GV Wire encourages vigorous debate from people and organizations on local, state, and national issues. Submit your op-ed to rreed@gvwire.com for consideration. 

RELATED TOPICS:

DON'T MISS

3 Valley Schools Honored by State as Model Community Day Schools

DON'T MISS

Will FUSD Trustees Look First Only at Internal Candidates in Superintendent Search?

DON'T MISS

How California’s Prized Solution for Methane Gas Is Backfiring on Farmers

DON'T MISS

Getting Paid to Go to School? California’s Community Colleges Try It Out

DON'T MISS

Clovis Medical School Students Celebrate First-Ever ‘Match Day’ for Residency Programs

DON'T MISS

Many Californians Rely on This Farmers Market Program. Newsom Wants to Cut It

DON'T MISS

Carbon Capture Storage Is Key to California’s Economy & Energy Future

DON'T MISS

English Learner Advocates in California Oppose ‘Science of Reading’ Bill

DON'T MISS

CA Leaders Must Address Falling Enrollment & Rising Absenteeism in Public Schools

DON'T MISS

Upcoming Netflix Documentary Series Features Fresno State Profs

No data was found

The 49ers Have Been Docked a 2025 Fifth-Round Draft Pick for an Accounting Error

5 hours ago

Fresno Bank Sued. It Allegedly Helped Bitwise Commit Fraud.

bitwise /

5 hours ago

How California’s Prized Solution for Methane Gas Is Backfiring on Farmers

environment /

8 hours ago

Supreme Court Seems Favorable to Biden Administration Over Efforts to Combat Social Media Posts

8 hours ago

Putin Extends Rule in Preordained Russian Election After Harshest Crackdown Since Soviet Era

8 hours ago

Ohtani to Begin Throwing Program Soon. Roberts Hints Dodgers Star Might Play in the Field

9 hours ago

Trump: Some Migrants Are ‘Not People’, There’ll Be a ‘Bloodbath’ if I Lose

9 hours ago

Tech Lawyer and Philanthropist Nicole Shanahan Rumored as RFK Jr.’s VP Pick

news /

9 hours ago

March Madness is Here. UConn, Purdue, Houston and North Carolina Get Top Seeding in NCAA Tournament

10 hours ago

Crafts Retailer Joann Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy as Consumers Cut Back on Pandemic-Era Hobbies

10 hours ago

Records Show That Valley Children’s Leader Suntrapak’s Pay Exceeds $5 Million

■Valley Children’s paid CEO Todd Suntrapak $5.2 million in 2021. The hospital also gave him a $5 million forgivable home loan. ■The Va...
Healthcare /

4 hours ago

3 days ago

Realtor Association Settles Lawsuit on Commission Rules. Fresno Broker Fears the End of Market Transparency

3 days ago

Prosecutor Leaves Georgia Election Case Against Trump After Relationship With District Attorney

3 days ago

Rory McIlroy’s 65: 10 Birdies, 2 Tee Shots in the Water, 1 Testy Dispute

3 days ago

Aaron Donald Announces His Retirement After a Standout 10-Year Career With the Rams

3 days ago

New Book Explores the Myths, Truths and Legacy of the Macho Man

3 days ago

Baseball Superstar Ohtani and His Wife Arrive in South Korea for Dodgers-Padres MLB Opener

3 days ago

India’s New Citizenship Law Excludes Muslims. Here’s What to Know

3 days ago

US, G-7 Allies Warn Iran to Back Off Deal to Provide Russia Ballistic Missiles or Face New Sanctions

Photo of San Francisco 49ers' Arik Armstead

3 days ago

Former 49ers DT Arik Armstead Agrees to a 3-Year, $51 Million Deal with the Jaguars, AP Source Says

3 days ago

Supreme Court Rules Public Officials Can Sometimes Be Sued for Blocking Critics on Social Media

Search