Mike thinks I'm overzealous in questioning the zeal with which ed reformers tie America's sub-par schools to forecasts of economic doom. There is, he argues, compelling evidence that economic growth is influenced by educational achievement, an arena where the United States typically trails lots of other countries. For instance, a recent Education Next article and an accompanying graph suggest that "cognitive skills," as measured by norm-referenced test scores, correlate positively with economic growth; the authors claim that "a highly skilled work force can raise economic growth by about two-thirds of a percentage point every year."
They also acknowledge, however, that the United States "has had a higher growth rate [from 1960 to 2000] than would be expected given its test scores and levels of school attainment." We can thank a number of factors for this lucky bit of American exceptionalism:
...the United States has other advantages, some of which are entirely separate and apart from the quality of its schooling. The U.S. maintains generally freer labor and product markets than most countries in the world. There is less government regulation of firms, and trade unions are less powerful than in many other countries. Put more broadly, the U.S. has generally less intrusion of government in the operation of the economy, including lower tax rates and minimal government production through nationalized industries. Taken together, these characteristics of the U.S. economy encourage investment, permit the rapid development of new products and activities by firms, and allow U.S. workers to adjust to new opportunities.
The United States has some subtler quirks, too, that are perhaps no less important to its economic strength and stamina. It has, for instance, K-12 schools and universities that are less beholden to a central agency than those of other countries, which may contribute to their ability to cultivate eccentric, creative types who revolutionize or spawn entire industries, even if they fail to churn out bevies of exam-acing engineers. It has high levels of productivity that may or may not be culturally rooted in something like the "Protestant work ethic" or the romantic inspiration of the "American Dream." It has a uniquely diverse population thanks to high levels of immigration, both historically and presently. It has a voracious appetite for consumables and lots of enterprising folks to provide them. It has Wall Street. It has Silicon Valley. It has Hollywood.
Economists try hard to classify and organize the material transactions and social interactions that create growth, and they're amazingly good at it. But even the most illuminating studies pierce but a little of the darkness that obscures the complex workings of our economy. It is because of our inadequacy as humans of limited intelligence to fully comprehend this mind-boggling complexity, more than anything else, that we should be wary of forecasts of economic catastrophe. For the common result of such alarm-ringing, usually framed in rhetoric much stronger than the prognosticator's confidence in his actual claims, is an eventual unpleasant confrontation with the beast of unintended consequences. (George Will's column yesterday on proposed changes to baseball--another exquisite example of American exceptionalism, by the way--offered some eloquent thoughts on this age-old but still neglected phenomenon.)
Mike and the authors of the Education Next piece are surely right that if American students, all things being equal, performed better on tests, the U.S. economy would see added growth. But knee-jerking lawmakers (at whom most of the economic competitiveness laments are aimed) are clumsy and in their attempts to "fix" math and science education won't leave all things equal. They're likely to improve scores by a small amount at best and wreak further havoc on the schools, and even the economy, at worst.
