Today New York Times carries an article on the failure of America’s public schools to teach math to kids. In schools that are among the most expensive in the world (for taxpayers), only 34 percent of 8th graders are “proficient” in math, and 39 percent of 4th graders. One major theme of the article is to beat the dead horse of the Bush Administration, by pointing out that No Child Left Behind does not seem to be working. The taxpayers are doing their part, paying up to $200,000 per year for each teacher (including pension obligations incurred). The students are doing their part, presumably, by showing up to school every day for 6 hours. If things aren’t working, it can only be due to incompetence on the part of the government at this fairly straightforward task.

Let’s contrast teaching K-8 math with managing health care. Instead of compliant 4th graders who show up to school every day, you have clever providers who will figure out where the gaps are in thousands of pages of federal rules and regulations and use those gaps to extract tens or hundreds of billions of dollars in extra profit. Instead of a fixed subject that has not changed substantially since the death of Brahmagupta in 668 A.D., health care presents a moving target of new procedures, drugs, tests, and fees. In the school system, the interests of the students and taxpayers are aligned. Both groups are better off if math is learned. In the health care system, there is a substantial moral hazard. If improved diabetes and heart disease therapies become available, people may indulge more in super sized meals.

You would think that the evidence of failure of trillions of dollars of tax money spent on math education in the period covered by the article (1996-present) would be a sobering reminder of the limits of government power, but none of the 50+ people commenting in the New York Times made that connection.

More: On my non-profit ideas page, I propose teaching math in the context of doing an engineering project, such as designing and building a bicycle.