I am reminded from several sources that 2023 marks the 40th anniversary of the landmark report of the Department of Education, “A Nation at Risk”, the provocative conclusion of which reads: “If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.” And one letter to the Wall Street Journal Editor responded to the anniversary as follows: “We are now raising our third generation of students and second generation of teachers in this system. We talk of ‘education reform’ as if there is something left to reform….What, if anything, has changed over the past four decades?”
My friend Rick Hess, writing for Education Week, says that quite a lot has changed; it’s just that so-called “education reform” has not kept up. In 1983, we still had confidence in the underlying principles of Horace Mann’s familiar schoolhouse, while the people and institutions it serves have decidedly moved in a different direction, and he wonders whether or not a new version is possible. Bill Galston thinks not, as long as we continue to be wedded to the same structural system, and he adds “we face social, political, and organizational problems in education that no mobilization from the top can solve”.
A big part of the solution starts with the introduction of competition into the system with universal school choice. Do we have the political will to overhaul the model? Frankly, I’m not sure. But if we don’t develop it soon we’re done as the world’s major power.
We need not only the political will but the political leadership. DeSantis seems to have it and so he is unpopular with the Left media (or is that redundant?)
Amen’a! Free enterprise is responsible for America’s prosperity, it could do wonders for education.
In full disclosure, I’ve become too jaded for a fair and open debate on most things political. The advantages of school choice for all students, families, our state and our nation are so evident to me, that opposition must be grounded in power and greed (or as Gregory asked “is that redundant?)
The school board of a Texas school district I am familiar with, has no interest in school choice. However, they did have an interest in a new football stadium and got a $25m bond issue passed to construct it. Now for many years this district had leased the local college’s field for their home games and could continue to do so. Follow the math: if the district played a total of 15 home games for their varsity, junior varsity and freshman games at $10,000 per game the annual cost is $150,000. Divide that into $25,000,000. It would take the district 166 years to just exceed the principle amount of that bond. Most folks I talk to don’t really seem to care.
I think I agree with Danny and the others posting comments so not much to add. Courage and will are critical as well as the principles of the free enterprise system. Teachers unions should not exist plus one can look at HISD for overstaffing in non-teaching areas.
Will be interesting to see if Gov. can get school choice passed in one and probably two special sessions.
Dave Phelan should resign immediately. Rural republicans not wanting school choice is a canard. The Dems own Phelan and a lot of the committee chairmen in the house of which he has appointed them all.