Let a Thousand Choices Bloom

Debating the future of education reform.

From the December 2005 issue

(Page 3 of 6)

Finally, education reformers need to face the fact that K�12 education is increasingly coming from a plurality of providers. We need reforms (whatever their labels) that enhance student learning and that respect our society's pluralism and institutions of constitutional liberty.

Biggest obstacle: If I had to pick the idea that is the biggest barrier to authentic education reform, I would pick the "retail fallacy." Too many middle-class Americans have decided that the public school their child goes to (because of where the family lives) is fine, even though there are problems at other schools. This is an illusion. American schools are not performing well, and students are not achieving their potential. People have the same tendency to think that their local hospital is fine but the medical system across the country is in trouble, and that their congressman is fine even though Congress as a whole is a mess.

The middle class is active in civic improvement and is the largest potential constituency for school reform. But, as Tom Bethell puts it, "parents are often wary of reforms because they worry that their own schools could lose out to others in a zero-sum reshuffle."

Clint Bolick

Bolick is president and general counsel of the Alliance for School Choice.

Most necessary reform: Given the tenacity and power of those who have a powerful stake in the status quo, freedom advocates cannot afford to oppose anything that meaningfully expands parental choice. Tuition and scholarship tax credits entail the least government regulation, but vouchers are more concentrated and can drive systemic public school reform. Let a thousand school choice flowers bloom, and we can see which variety works best.

Ultimately, we need to redefine "public education," focusing less on where education takes place and more on whether it takes place. A child learning at home in front of a computer or in a religious school is advancing the true goals of public education; a child trapped in a crime-infested public school with little prospect of learning is not.

If we were starting today a system of public education from scratch, with all of the technological innovations at our disposal, would it look anything like the ossified, hidebound, bricks-and-mortar, command-and-control, homo-genous, bureaucratic, bloated, inefficient, special-interest-dominated monopoly that represents the biggest socialist system west of China and south of the U.S. Postal System? Of course not. We would create a system that is tailored to the individual needs of every child.

We have the capacity to do just that, by giving power over educationfunding to parents to spend wherever they wish: in public schools, private schools, home schools, tutoring, or some combination. Government should be a funder rather than a monopoly provider of education; local school boards should be providers of educational services, not ideological politburos; and public school principals, teachers, and parents should all have greater autonomy.

Biggest obstacle: The greatest institutional obstacles to systemic education reform are teachers unions, school boards and administrators, and schools of education. Good teachers have nothing to fear from competition--indeed, they obtain more power over their classrooms and sometimes even higher pay. But unions could lose members, dues, and political clout. Bureaucrats and local politicians do lose out in a market system of education--neither producers nor consumers of education find them of much value. Schools of education, which largely control the supply of schoolteachers (and have an abysmal track record to show for it), also lose if teachers are chosen on the basis of skill and merit rather than surviving a stultifying curriculum. All use public funds or compulsory dues to fight school choice.

Howard Fuller

Fuller is a distinguished professor of education and founder/director of the Institute for the Transformation of Learning at Marquette University.

Most necessary reform: I'm not a supporter of universal vouchers. I support targeted vouchers for low-income and working-class people. People with money have always had choice: If their schools aren't working, they can either move to communities where they do work or put their kids in private school. It's only poor and working-class families that are forced to keep their children in schools that do not work for them.

Biggest obstacle: The people who support the status quo are much more politically powerful at this point than people who are supporting reforms such as parental choice. It's the teachers unions, of course, but also the administrator organizations, school board associations, and in many instances schools of education. That's not to say no one in these sectors wants children to succeed; the vast majority probably do. The question is whether they're willing to have structures, processes, and power arrangements that will allow that to happen.

Terry M. Moe