Competition and Accountability in Education

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I believe the U.S. Department of Education is unconstitutional and should be abolished. But beyond the Constitutional issue education is also an intensely local issue. Parents in each school district know best what types of schools best suite their children- not a bunch of bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.

The U.S. Department of Education's budget doubled under President Bush from $33billion to just under $70billion. Wayne Allen Root asks in The Conscience of a Libertarian, "Anyone think that education improved by double? Anyone think our kids are twice as smart? Education is failing precisely because the federal government is involved." President Obama has thrown another $130billion in stimulus money for education on top of the $70billion baseline budget- that's $200billion for education! Throwing money at teachers unions will not solve our problems when teachers are basically given tenure regardless of performance of their students.

Want more evidence federal involvement in education is the problem? Root points to an international study of industrialized nations' 15 year-old students: "Out of 30 industrialized countries, U.S. students ranked 25th in math and 21st in science." The Department of Education has been around since President Jimmy Carter. Lotta good it's done.

The right path is to abolish the Department of Education and return education to the state and local level.

In the October 12 issue of Fortune there is an interview with the head of New York City's public school system, Joel Klein. Mr. Klein is a graduate of New York public schools, Columbia University and Harvard Law School. Before taking over NY schools in 2002 he had never worked in the field of education.

Joel Klein has been a catalyst for change by injecting crazy ideas like accountability, competition, autonomy and leadership into each local school. His changes are bringing about results. For instance in 2005 the drop out rate was 22%. Last year that had declined to 14%. The graduation rate in '05 was 47% but spiked to 61% in 2008.

The key to his success has been giving each principal the authority to make independent decisions as to how he or she runs the school, including extended days, extended weeks, community engagement and more. In short he has empowered them and provided them the leadership training they need to be successful.

Teachers are now being paid differently based on results in their schools, the need to send better teachers to schools most in need and the subject matter they teach (science teachers should be paid more then physical education teachers). Additionally, he is firing people who do not produce results and even closing entire schools that are failing.

We need to seriously look at implementing real-world principles of accountability, competition, leadership, choice and autonomy into our education system if the U.S. hopes to compete in the global economy of the 21 century. Otherwise we will quickly be overtaken as an economic power.