The Future of School Choice - With Lisa Snell, Joe Trippi, Virginia Walden Ford, Patrick Byrne, & Rebeca Huffman

Teachers unions? Complacent parents? Bureaucracy? Dumb kids? Misinformation? The U.S. spends more on K-12 education than virtually any country in the world, yet our educational system yields mediocre results.

What is the biggest obstacle facing America's serious school reform?

On January 20, 2011, Reason's Nick Gillespie and Lisa Snell led a discussion on the future of school choice at Reason's DC HQ. The participants included Virginia Walden Ford, a pioneer in the District of Columbia's school choice movement; Rebeca Huffman of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers; Patrick M. Byrne, the Ph.D. CEO of Overstock.com and chairman of The Foundation for Educational Choice; and Joe Trippi, the Democratic campaign strategist who brought the Internet to politics.

This event was held to kick off National School Choice Week, an initiative to raise awareness of how competition and choice can transform public education.

Don't forget to watch Reason.tv's latest videos on school choice, including interviews with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, former New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, Green Dot Public Schools founder Steve Barr, and a host of education reformers who are radically transforming public education.

Approximately 60 minutes. Filmed by Jim Epstein, Meredith Bragg and Joshua Swain, and edited by Swain.

Go to Reason.tv for downloadable versions, and subscribe to Reason.tv's YouTube Channel to receive automatic notification when new material goes live.

For Reason.tv's education videos, go here.

For Reason.com's coverage of education, go here.

For education policy research from Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes this website, go here.

Comments

[PIRS]

"Teachers unions? Complacent parents? Bureaucracy? Dumb kids? Misinformation?"

If your question is "Which of the above is the reason U.S. schools suck so much I would have to say it is a combination of teachers unions and Bureaucracy. Other countries have teachers unions, it is true, but ours are VERY powerfull. Also, for decades they were viewed differently than other unions. The orwellian name "National Education Association" helped in their propoganda. This would sort of be like a Detroit Auto Union calling itself "National Quality Car Association".

[PIRS]

By the way, to blame the kids themselves is absurd. We are a land of immigrants and our DNA is a mix of DNA from all of these other countries.

[R C Dean]

The kids don't necessarily have mixed DNA, which is irrelevant anyway.

What isn't irrelevant is that some cultures value education, and some don't. Kids are raised in one or another of these cultures. It makes a difference in how much the absorb of whatever education they are offered.

[PIRS]

It is true that some cultures value education more than others. In once subculture I am aware of young people who want a good education are sometimes accused of "acting white".

[Mango Punch]

Rebecca Huffman

[Old Mexican]

The Future of School Choice

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Q8vl8wFm7g

[Old Mexican]

What is the biggest obstacle facing America's serious school reform?

People's love affair with socialism.

[omg]

I've got a great idea!

Kids need to be educated! So lets steal a whole bunch of money at gunpoint, right? Then we'll chuck the money around a whole bunch of bureaucracies, who will make important decisions with the money (they totally won't waste or spend the money unnecessarily). Then lets use some of the money to build little prisons that children will be forced to attend (and adults will be forced to pay for regardless of if they have kids or if their kids attend the prison school).

Then lets give a single organization near absolute control over what teachers can get hired, fired, and how much those teachers will get paid. The teacher is always right, and the student is always wrong.

Some students won't like this concentration camp-like environment where they are mindlessly shuffled from one classroom to another to listen to the boring drone of another overpaid teacher. So we should drug them with the psychotropic drug du jour until they learn some respect.

Then we will look back and wonder why a third of the kids graduating from these "schools" can't even read the diploma we give them.

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