One of the many problems with EFAs is that they simply continue the Pay-and-Pray paradigm that is at the root of our failing school system.
Let’s ask a straightforward question:
Under what conditions should we spend tax money on something for which we have no specific, agreed-upon goals (and therefore no way to judge whether our goals have been met), and no recourse when results are unacceptable?
When you put it that way, the answer is pretty clear: Never.
Our schools don’t work because we haven’t agreed on a clear statement of what problem they’re supposed to solve.
Are they supposed to provide children with ‘bright futures’, or ‘good-paying jobs’? Are they supposed to help us compete with other states, or with the rest of the world? Are they supposed to prepare citizens to help preserve a free government?
If we don’t even know what the problem is, we can only solve it by accident — a strategy that hasn’t been working very well for us.
Here’s the Pay-and-Pray model that we use to fund both schools and EFAs:
First, we pay — up front, without saying exactly what we’re supposed to get for our money.
Second, we pray — hoping for the best, without any good way of knowing later on what we actually got for our money.
Third, if we’re not happy — well, we’re just SOL. The money’s been spent, we can’t sue, and we have no choice but to try again next year.
Contrast that with the model we use for buying just about anything else:
First, we agree on what we’re going to get.
Second, we get it.
Third, only then do we pay for it.
Fourth, if we’re not happy, we get a refund, a replacement, or a repair; or the seller makes it right; or we can go to court.
Because EFAs are firmly within the Pay-and-Pray paradigm, they can’t really improve anything. As Zig Ziglar said:
If you aim for nothing, you’ll hit it every time.
Unless we pay for learning in the same way that we pay for other goods and services — results first, payment afterwards — we’ll just keep getting what we’ve been getting, because we’ll just be doing what we’ve been doing.
Any effective reform of education will require us to
agree on exactly what problem we’re trying to solve, and why, and what counts as a solution;
pay after the fact for results, rather than up front for good intentions; and
have effective recourse in case of failure.
Until we’ve made those changes to EFAs, they shouldn’t be available to anyone, let alone to everyone.