FOUR MORE YEARS: President Bush should empower parents by giving them a say over where—and how and from whom—their children learn. By Chester E. Finn Jr.
One can hope.
Education loomed small during the campaign, save for
much fruitless wrangling over the adequacy of
current federal spending levels. Immediately after his victory, however, the president enumerated his
high-priority agenda items for the second term
and included education on that list. But how he talked about it is
revealing—and worrying. His other domestic initiatives could be termed part of the
“ownership society.” They would empower individuals and
families to make their own decisions and direct their own resources:
shaping their own social security, finding the health care that suits them,
keeping more of their after-tax income, paying for the college of their
choice, and so on. Only when talking about K-12 education did he speak in
terms of institutions, indeed of governmental institutions: “make
public schools all they can be” was the key Bush phrase. Here he
spoke of providers of the delivery system rather than its clients.
There is, of course, much to be said for improving the
elementary-secondary delivery system and plenty of reason to focus on high
schools, which appear to be the top White House concern. The real falloff
in U.S. achievement begins in the middle grades and worsens after eighth
grade, and we have evidence aplenty that, even
as a woefully large number of young people fail
to graduate from high school, a huge fraction of those who do are
unprepared for college-level academics or the modern workplace.
Yet reforming U.S. high schools, important and worthy
as it is, is also what John Kerry would have done as president. It has
little to do with the election results or the GOP mandate, such as it is.
And it has naught to do with the moral values and faith issues that are
said by most analysts to have shaped the
election results—and differentiated Republicans from Democrats.
The proper GOP focus these next four years would be to
bring the ownership society into
primary-secondary education by accelerating America’s progress toward universal school choice. That’s the
K-12 equivalent of giving people a say over
their health care and their social security investments. Give them a say over where (and how and from whom) their
children learn.
There are innumerable ways in which this goal could be
advanced from Washington. Let me mention four:
Strengthen the landmark education law of the first
term, the No Child Left Behind Act, by turning its modest choice elements
into something that will serve many more children. Erase the statutory
boundaries that now constrain those choices (e.g., school districts),
create alternative mechanisms to operate these
programs in states and districts that are hostile to them, seed thousands more charter schools, and make it harder for
states and districts to obstruct the spread of charters.
Underwrite the growth of virtual schools and virtual
charter schools, thus bringing the benefits of
enriched curricula and high-quality instruction, as well as educational options and modern technology, to rural and
small-town America and to homeschoolers.
Following the new District of Columbia model, make
federally subsidized voucher programs
available for low-income youngsters in communities that are ready and
willing to accept such programs.
Using consumer-friendly information systems (e.g.,
GreatSchools.net), bring specific data about school options and school
performance to parents across America so that they can make informed
choices—and do their part to hold schools accountable for results.
Four worthy federal policy initiatives—and
that’s just the tip of the choice iceberg.
If President Bush wants a lasting education legacy from his second term, he
should do for the empowerment of parents what, during his first term, he
did for standards, testing, and school accountability. He might even find a
measure of support among Democrats who have figured out that it’s
neither sound policy nor good politics to remain joined at the hip to the
public school establishment.
Special to the Hoover Digest. Available from the Hoover Press is School Accountability: An Assessment by the Koret Task Force on K–12 Education, edited by Williamson M. Evers and Herbert J. Walberg. To order, call 800.935.2882. Chester E. Finn Jr. is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and chairman of the Koret Task Force on K–12 Education. He is also president and trustee of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation. Previously, he was professor of education and public policy at Vanderbilt University, senior fellow of the Hudson Institute, founding partner with the Edison Project and legislative director for Senator Daniel P. Moynihan. He served as assistant U.S. education secretary for research and improvement from 1985 to 1988. Author of more than 400 articles and 15 books, Finn's most recent books are Reroute the Preschool Juggernaut and Troublemaker: A Personal History of School Reform since Sputnik. |
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