The average minority student consistently performs less well than the typical white student, although this performance gap has narrowed slightly since the mid-1970s. Students from the U.S. consistently perform less well than those from other countries. There is little evidence to suggest that this international performance gap is narrowing. Three problems largely explain the inefficiency of public education today. Disregard for efficiency and productivity.
Inefficiency drains off funds, frustrating efforts to achieve superior performance for all students.
In fact, however, education is too important for inefficiency to be tolerated. Absence of performance incentives. Management by incentives is more appropriate to the complex and highly decentralized nature of effective teaching, yet schools today make little use of performance incentives. Public schools don't learn from experience. Schools not only lack good answers to the problems that beset them, but they are not generating answers that will help in the future.