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Nancy Baker teaches in the English Department of Southeast Missouri State University and is coordinator of the Writing Assessment program. She is also president of the board of education for St. Mary Cathedral School in Cape Girardeau.

John C. Chubb, a senior fellow of governmental studies at Brookings Institute, addressed approximately 400 Missouri educators in Jefferson City on Jan. 29 concerning the issue of choice in education. He asserted that the best and most effective schools are those where parents purposefully send their children and where school management is delegated to the local level. The following essay recounts the major points of Dr. Chubb's lecture.

Before people are willing to hear the arguments supporting choice in education, they must be convinced that a problem exists. While some maintain that the problem is minor or nonexistent, a few examples emphasize the magnitude of the problem.

In some big cities, the dropout rate for high school students is nearing 50 percent, and many of those who do graduate are ill-prepared for college or the work force. The National Assessment of Educational Progress, using curriculum-based tests, recently concluded that only 6 percent of high school graduates are ready for college mathematics and that only half are achieving at the eighth-grade level. On this test, forty-four percent of high school juniors who were asked to convert 9/100 to a percentage were unable to do so.

Educational Testing Service concluded at the end of its last international contest that 13-year-olds in the United States placed last in math and in the bottom third in science. The Japanese placed 50 percent of their high school students at the same level as the top 5 percent of American students. Examples cited by Dr. Chubb in the area of history are equally grim with 42 percent of high school juniors not realizing that World War I occurred sometime between 1900 and 1950 and 30 percent placing the discovery of the new world by Christopher Columbus after 1750.

Many people agree that the above statistics are disturbing, but believe that kids today are more difficult to teach than in the past. It is true that schools face challenges, such as drugs, divorce and poverty. Still, the performance of America's best students has slipped as much if not more than the students growing up in troubled situations.

In the last 5 years, SAT scores of the best students slipped 15 points. These declines are continuing despite the fact that parents of today's high schools are better educated than in the past. For example, in 1960, half the mothers of school-age children didn't have high school diplomas; today only 20 percent don't.

What is even more troubling than the above examples is that despite trying very hard, schools are still not doing very well. Today, we have an education president, a national goals panel, and an education initiative endorsed by all of the governors. Additionally, more money is pumped into education today than at any time in the past. After inflation, we still spend twice as much per student as we did 25 years ago, and classes are, on the average, 25 percent smaller. Teachers today are also better trained. Almost 60 percent of public school teachers now have a master's degree as compared with the 22 percent who held an advanced degree in 1970.

Those who advocate choice in education believe traditional reforms are not working, that it is time to try something new. Choice in education calls for allowing parents to select the school their children will attend. Opponents of choice call for continued separation between church and state, worry that private schools will subject students to select doctrines, and believe that the public school system could be undermined. But the most serious objection to choice was raised last year by the president of the American Federation of Teachers who argued that private schools should not be included in choice plans because they are no better than public schools.

In 1990 Brookings Institute published "Politics, Markets and American Schools," which investigated the difference in performance of public and private schools. The study which looked at a sample of 500 schools involving 22,000 students, teachers and principals over 4 years concluded that without a doubt private schools outperform their public school counterparts by as much as one year of achievement during the high school years. More private school graduates are likely to go on to college and graduate with a four-year degree.

In addition, private schools are more integrated racially than public schools. An additional key difference between public and private schools is that public schools have more money and authority invested in central office and state bureaucracy than private schools. For example, in New York City, 6,600 people work in the public school central office, a ratio of 1 to 150 students in the system; in the Catholic Archdiocese of New York, 25 people work in the central office, a ratio of 1 to 4000. School-based management, as demonstrated by most private schools, is a key factor in student success.

Evidence also suggests that private school teachers work with more dedication than public school teachers. Private school teachers come to school more often. The research study done by Brookings Institute found that while 40 percent of private school teachers had perfect attendance during the school year, less than half that number of public school teachers had perfect attendance. Private school teachers also invested 15 percent more out-of-school time to develop lesson plans, tutor students and monitor extracurricular activities than their public school counterparts.

Private school teachers are also more successful in getting their students into rigorous academic programs. With all things being equal, such as family situation and individual aptitude, a child in private schools is almost twice as likely to take algebra in eighth grade and subsequently be enrolled in college prep programs as a child in public schools. Private schools have also been extremely successful in getting parents involved in the school.

Dr. Chubb presented us with the results of the Brookings Institute study. Now, we as educators and parents in the state of Missouri need to continue to investigate the issue of choice in education. Choice is not an issue of religion, but an issue of improving schools. As more is being written about choice in education and as the issue is being introduced in state and national legislatures, for the benefit of the school children of today and the future, we need to fully explore the opportunities that private schools can give their students.