Education Secretary Arne Duncan sent a letter to education stakeholders last week touting the Presidents plans for the coming year.  I am encouraged to see continued support, at least lip service, for reform, but I am also a little disconcerted by the administration’s penchant for supporting programs based on political popularity/expediency rather than evidence and results.

In his letter, Secretary Duncan emphasizes two programs which have a rather shaky track record for results.  The first is increased student aid for higher ed.  While it is true that the cost of tuition has been rising quickly over the past decade, it is certainly not clear that more student aid will make college more affordable.  There is some evidence that universities soak up any increases in student aid through tuition increases, leaving the affordability of a college degree relatively unchanged. And, there is further evidence that student aid does not help low-income families to the extent that we would like. Navigating the complicated application process serves as a barrier to many of these needy students. Reforming the student loan process and simplifying the aid application could go a long way to mitigating the system’s deficiencies, but more money will mostly help college’s bottom lines.

It is also important to note that the returns to a college degree have also been rising at a rapid rate over the past decade. In other words the economy is placing greater and greater value on a college degree, and this has a direct positive  impact on lifetime earnings. The promise of greater lifetime earnings should not only induce more people to attend college, but should also increase their ability to pay for college by providing them with more income to repay student loans.

Evidence suggests that college readiness is a much larger problem than college affordability. In 2001 only about 32% of the nations high school students “leave high school qualified to attend four-year colleges.”  This report also found that nearly all those who were qualified to attend a four-year institution did. Given this evidence, shouldn’t we be focusing our money and attention on college readiness rather than affordability?

Mr. Duncan also touts the administration’s commitment to early learning (preschool) programs, the most notable of which is Head Start. But, there is a growing body of evidence showing that early childhood education programs produce marginal results that fade out alarmingly fast (here is a review of the latest study of Head Start).  I am not making the claim that early childhood education is not important, but I am questioning whether we are getting the best bang for our education buck.  Head Start gets an increase in funding in spite of poor results while programs with a demonstrated record of success like the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program get cut.

It’s time President Obama lived up to his claim of evidence based governance. Both the Race to the Top competition and the reauthorization of NCLB (now ESEA) will be great tests of the administration on this front.  We will be watching with our fingers crossed, but not holding our breath.

UPDATE: Rick Hess and Andy Rotherham have some interesting things to say about the President’s reauthorization strategy. Here is another article about ESEA from EdWeek.