Monday, December 13, 2010

School Deregulation

At National Affairs, Frederick Hess has an extended piece onhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif school choice. One of his main points is that the rhetoric of "school choice" developed in a funny way (according to him, because the urban African-American leaders calling for better options in schooling had the most politically palatable rhetoric). I wonder if the fate of the school choice movement would be at all different if it were instead called school deregulation.

Lots of gems at the article, I won't quote many here because I encourage you to take some time and read it. My favorite quote:

Markets are a product of laws, norms, talent, information, and capital, and the absence of these can readily yield market failures — not because markets do not work, but because markets are not a magical salve.

I am totally fascinated by education policy right now. Is this because it's a compelling topic or because I should be studying for finals? Guess I will know next week.

(H/T Tyler Cowen)
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2 comments:

Tom Church said...

Pete, I'm just catching up on my Reader and saw your post.

Not sure if you came across this one, related to Charter Schools: (http://modeledbehavior.com/2010/10/15/making-charter-schools-work/)

It points out that Charter Schools do well with two groups: Students in poverty and ELL students.

I'm thinking that's argument enough to support them.

December 20, 2010 at 9:33 PM
Pete Abbate said...

Great link, Tom. You're absolutely right that if charter schools benefit only those groups they are a worthy cause indeed.

December 24, 2010 at 12:42 PM

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Rational Ignorants

Compared with the totality of knowledge which is continually utilized in the evolution of a dynamic civilization, the difference between the knowledge that the wisest and that which the most ignorant individual can deliberately employ is comparatively insignificant. ~Fredrich Hayek in The Constitution of Liberty