Transformations of the public school systems are coming through innovations in teacher preparation, school design, curriculum design and new connections (such as the skills centers in Washington State or P-16 councils).

Holding out competition and free choice as The Answer to transforming school performance is, well, a bit like believing that the tooth fairy will cure my tooth ache.

The best place to start to get educated on some practical approaches to education performance is the KnowledgeWorks Foundation and the Center for Excellence in Leadership of Learning at the University of Indianapolis.

Yes, yes, yes, yes and YES!

The public educational school model is a failure. It fails to realize that different people will need to learn different things. Sure the rudimentary knowledge of the R’s (reading, writing and arithmetic) need to be taught to all, but at the high school level there needs to be sort of a choice given to students. Now, to be fair there is some choice. Vocational educational is offered at many schools. More should be done to encourage it.

The truth is there is a social stigma about not going to college now. There is a social stigma about going to a trade school. School counselors give out statistics all the time about how college education helps your earnings potential. Well, thats true but only if you go into certain fields. Law, medicine, engineering and accounting is what makes going into college worthwhile. Instead we have many students who go to college to party, major in business management or communications, get out of college and are SHOCKED that they can’t find work. I have known a lot of these people myself and if they weren’t my friends I would tell them “What did you expect???”

The root of the whole problem in public education is the word “public”. As has been proven in many, many, many things when the governments tries to stick its nose where it doesn’t belong, be it the economy, social issues or education, the system goes awry. Sadly, we EXPECT the government to do something. But the real answer is not more government intervention and more government money but LESS of both.

Imagine a system made up purely of private schools where cirriculum and testing would not be determined by some government bureuracrat, but by individuals who are intimately tied to the schools. Imagine if these schools were REALLY accountable. Both sides now talk a lot about accountability but if you really want accountability in the schools give parents the choice to pull their kids out of bad schools and transfer them to better competitors. What incentive do Cleveland Public Schools have to get better? How much do you think the teachers and administrators care about the failing grades they get from the Ohio state government. OK, I am sure they care about it to an extent. I am sure they are tired of politicians nagging and nagging them. But either way, they know that the kids are still going to be coming to the schools and as long as thats true the schools will still get money and as long there is money they have jobs. So, the accountability pressure is not really economic its purely political and thats not enough.

Competition and free choice is the answer. Subsidizing a bad system is the wrong course. Will we do anything different? Given the strength of the teachers union in the Democratic party and the fact that the Democratic party will now be in power, I say don’t hold your breath.