The quote you provided, "....guaranteeing to ALL students a decent education" will require replacing bureaucratic control, particularly federal interference, with market solutions. I prefer to view the Bush proposals as the tiniest incremental step in a desirable direction . . ."
Your comments and the comments of the WSJ, which traditionally is biased in favor of the so-called market approach, even to public services, over-simplify the problem. Union pressure is not always the culprit, as the WSJ, representing anit-union thinking, traditionally believes. I can point out dozens of school districts where unions have little or no impact, but where school boards, and school board members looking for jobs for the friends certainly do have an impact. If you get lousy school boards, for whatever reasons, you are going to end up with lousy schools, unions or no unions.
There is some argument to be made for charter schools or a limited voucher program that could increase incentives toward better performance, but the risk is that the total available funding for public schools will be reduced, irrespective of genuine need.
One can draw a parallel between a much older, but similarly thorny issue--trash pickup by municipal or private agencies. Turns out that neither system is perfect and that in some (but not all) instances, one or the other is preferable, and in other instances both working together are useful.
Again, I believe the all or nothing approach is simplistic and designed to mislead voters into thinking that simple changes in favor of so-called free market competition are all that it takes to improve the system. Such a view is nothing more than an attempt to defraud voters.
Art |
