Righting the 'rithmetic.

• Author: Hood, John

Credible statistics are essential but hard to come by in debates over education policy.

IN PUBLIC-POLICY BATTLES, STATISTICS fly fast and furiously. Whether you core a hit depends a great deal on presentation and credibility. During last year's presidential campaign, for example, President George Bush's assurances that the national economy was rebounding from a relatively mild 1990-91 recession were met with catcalls and snide "he just doesn't get it" remarks.

But in August, the Clinton Commerce Department released data showing that Bush was, indeed, correct: The economy grew by about 4 percent during 1992, while the depth of the previous recession had been exaggerated. "There must be people in the White House this morning |saying~, 'Thank God these numbers weren't released during the election,'" commented Bank of America senior economist Michael Penzer.

In debates on education policy--where state and local government agencies play the most important role--statistics are even more poorly gathered and interpreted. Each state has its own idiosyncrasies: how public education is organized, how government employees are classified, etc. These difficulties are rarely understood by the general public or even by education "experts," so the quality of the debate suffers. Countless governors and legislatures have created entire educational programs, from school-district equalization to teacher salary schedules, based on inaccurate data.

Unfortunately, the use and abuse of education statistics exist on all sides of the reform debate. Advocates of school choice and privatization sometimes overstate school spending. Defenders of the status quo frequently understate it. And through it all, self-interested players such as the National Education Association continue to enjoy reputations as non-partisan, reliable sources of information.

You might be surprised to learn that the NEA supplies the Department of Education, academic researchers, and education activists on both sides with virtually all information on the nation's teachers. Not surprisingly, this information indicates that teachers are underpaid compared to other professionals, that wide disparities exist among states in teacher pay, and that teacher pay has stagnated over the last 20 years, growing 4 percent (and declining in real terms during the 1970s). "Unfortunately," writes school privatization advocate Myron Lieberman in his new book, Public Education: An Autopsy, "the media and the U.S...