Education Reform

The Commission on the Skills of the American People has just published a new report: Tough Choices or Tough Times describing how they propose to reform our primary and secondary education systems. The executive summery of the report lists 10 problems with our current education system as well as a ten point plan for reform. Highlights of the report are that the commission would fund education systems at the state rather than the local level by essentially creating a statewide voucher program, establish state exit exams and allow students who passed those exams to leave the school system bound for either community college or advanced studies, and reform teacher compensation to attract more talented teachers and motivate teachers to excel instead of just remain employees.

All of these points seem like good things to do, but good luck getting them implemented. Such drastic overhauls would be terrible news for the existing teacher's unions, which have prevented reform for decades. Education vouchers are just a toe in the water compared with the recommendations in this report. We need real reform, but are only likely to get tweaks at the margins.

I will try to include more details as I have a chance to do further analysis.

School Choice

Thanks to everyone who commented on my compelling interest question a few weeks back. Glad to see that we were able to get some discussion going. Also I am glad to see that most people seem to believe that the government has some interest in funding the education of the next generation. My concern with a completely private education system is that parents of school-aged children typically would struggle to fund their children’s education, which could result in a generation of people who lack the skills to make a meaningful contribution to society – especially in a rapidly globalizing world in which low skilled laborers in the U.S. must compete with people in third world countries that are just joining the world economy. Ultimately threat of increased competition at the lower end of the skills spectrum should focus public attention on the great importance of improving education so that the U.S. can continue to maintain a competitive edge.

With that in mind, I was happy to read this opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, which describes the state of education in Minneapolis, one of the leaders in adopting school choice. Apparently low income and minority parents are pulling their children out of the public schools and sending them either to suburban public school districts or to charter schools in the city. I particularly liked this paragraph containing quotes from a community leader:

Black leaders like Louis King have had enough. He has a message for the school board: "You'll have to make big changes to get us back." He says the district needs a board that views families as customers and understands that competition has unalterably changed the rules of the game. "I'm a strong believer in public education," says Mr. King. "But this district's leaders have to make big changes or go out of business. If they don't, we'll see them in a museum, like the dinosaurs."

School choice has been a reality in Minneapolis for over fifteen years, but is not even offered to the majority of parents and students in this country. We need to increase the pressure to allow more educational options in this country or we will not be prepared for the emerging threat of globalization.

Compelling Interest?

Travis and Dobber posted an interesting collection of opinions about obsticales to enhanced school choice. Clearly everyone in this group believes that increased choice is imperative in the education market, but it seems that the group breaks into two divisions based on whether they believe that society, through government, has an interest in insuring that every person has some minimum level of education.

So, here is the question for you guys, does society, through government, have a compelling interest in guaranteeing that every person has a minimum level of education?

If the answer is yes, then tax funded charter schools and voucher programs are an appropriate solution to providing competition to government run schools. However, if the answer is no, then the tax funded primary and secondary education system should be privatized.

Thoughts…

School Choice in DC

The Club for Growth pointed me towards this article about some early results of the school voucher program in Washington DC. In general, I am in favor of allowing parents to choose where to send their children to school, even if that means sending public tax dollars to private schools. It appears that many of the parents in Washington DC share that opinion.