Showing posts with label transparency. Show all posts
Showing posts with label transparency. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
People are starting to pay more attention to what is "behind the curtain" in our public schools
I caught a few minutes of a school board budget meeting in the school district next to mine, which happens to be near the one that is the subject of this post. Residents were complaining about what they considered to be outrageous compensation packages given to school administrators. Some speakers expressed surprise about the way that school employees are able to carry forward so many personal/sick days and bump up their compensation during their last year of employment. Of course, the incentive to do just that lies in the fact that lifetime pensions are based on the last year or so of pay.
A couple of speakers compared their situation to that of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, as they were only now learning what was "behind the curtain".
The quote from the movie is, "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain." Well, people are certainly starting to pay attention now.
(Cross-posted at Education Quick Takes)
A couple of speakers compared their situation to that of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, as they were only now learning what was "behind the curtain".
The quote from the movie is, "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain." Well, people are certainly starting to pay attention now.
(Cross-posted at Education Quick Takes)
Monday, February 23, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
transparency
from The White Man's Burden by William Easterly:
I'm keen to know what effects real transparency would have on public education (if any).
Suppose parents knew exactly where their kids stood in relation to their peers in Europe and Asia.
Would that make folks less inclined to take no for an answer?
The fact that ed schools never, ever call a spade a spade tells me they fear the answer to that question is 'yes.'
Other evidence on what works has come from cross-country comparisons of country practices and certain outcomes.... James Barth of Auburn, Gerard Caprio of Williams College, and Ross Levine of Brown University found a strong association between banking regulations that force banks to disclose accurate, timely, comparable information on their finances and the level of banking development in a country. They controlled for possible reverse causality and found that the result still held. Contrary to the widespread view that tough official bank supervision is needed to protect savers from rogue banks, they found a negative relationship between powers of bank supervisors and development of a healthy banking industry (also controlling for possible reverse causality). If you want to promote healthy banking, which is an ingredient in enabling the poor to help themselves through credit, then these statistical associations point you in the direction of regulating information disclosure rather than having powerful official bank supervisors.
p. 375
I'm keen to know what effects real transparency would have on public education (if any).
Suppose parents knew exactly where their kids stood in relation to their peers in Europe and Asia.
Would that make folks less inclined to take no for an answer?
The fact that ed schools never, ever call a spade a spade tells me they fear the answer to that question is 'yes.'
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