School Choice Isn’t Enough - Instructional reform is the key to better schools.

“But the new reliance on markets hasn’t prevented special interests from hijacking the curriculum.” “The mayor and chancellor(of New York) appear to be agnostic on what actually works in the classroom.”

“We confront what Hirsch calls the “thoughtworld” of teacher training, which operates like a Soviet-style regime suppressing alternative perspectives.”

“Professors who dare to break with the ideological monopoly—who look to reading science or, say, embrace a core knowledge approach—won’t get tenure, or get hired in the first place. The teachers they train thus wind up indoctrinated with the same pedagogical dogma. Those who put their faith in the power of markets to improve schools must at least show how their theory can account for the stubborn persistence of the thoughtworld.”

“These instructionists pushed the state’s board of education (Mass.) to mandate a rigorous curriculum for all grades, created demanding tests linked to the curriculum standards, and insisted that all high school graduates pass a comprehensive exit exam.”

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It is amazing to me that intelligent people continually point to the major reasons why the government indoctrination centers fail to educate, and then, still, wonder why the schools fail to educate.

IT IS THE ENTIRE SYSTEM, SILLIES. IT IS MEANT TO FAIL.

If vouchers can’t pass voter scrutiny in conservative Utah, though, how probable is it that they will do so anywhere else?

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First of all, outside of the cities, Utah is heavily Mormon. The citizens of Utah already have church schools: GOVERNMENT schools!

The principals of these schools are Mormon. The teachers are Mormon. They have release time so that their high school students can walk across the street to a beautiful church “seminary” building and receive scripture classes. Much of the social life of their kids revolves around these church “seminaries”. No teacher is about to get or keep a job in Utah unless they , at least outwardly, live the social standards of the Mormon faith.

In the suburban and rural areas, the government Mormon schools are OK. The test results are above average for the nation, and they have little of the social problems seen in other parts of the country. The citizens in these areas have little reason to be unhappy with their local government school.

In many suburban and rural areas of Utah there are NO private schools whatsoever!! They don’t exist! Why should they? The Mormons essentially have government paid for, FREE, religious schools in the form of government schools. That’s a tough, price-fixed, monopoly market for any private school to compete against.

Also, in many communities the government schools are the single biggest employer in the county! That’s tons of jobs there, folks. Even the town dentist relies on school employee dental insurance for a living. Who in their right mind is going to vote against that?

Then the citizens of Utah rightly reasoned that increasing spending for vouchers while at the same time increasing spending on government schools would likely lead to an **increase** in taxes. So...why would any right thinking suburban or rural Mormon vote for vouchers, so that ( mostly) non-Mormon kids in the cities could go to private schools?

So?...Is is any wonder that vouchers went down in flames in Utah?

If the legislators want to increase the demand for vouchers and encourage the growth of private schools, they should do two things:

1) Gradually increase the money for the Rachel Carson vouchers for the disabled. “Disabled” includes disabilities such as dyslexia. As waiting lists form for these vouchers, political pressure grows to increase the number and amount of the vouchers.

2) Increase the number of charters. Allow religious charters. And, then issue vouchers to students attending charters. As long waiting lists form, the political pressure grows to increase both the number of “charters” and the vouchers that allows the child to attend the “charter”. Doing this would essential make the charter a private school.

I have followed the Utah voucher referendum somewhat closely. My husband and I like Utah. We visit frequently to ski, camp, and mountain bike. We have several friends living in this beautiful state.

Our non-Mormon friends complain that the kids have a difficult time socially with the other children since so much of the social life of Mormon children is church centered. And, their children are constantly being proselytized and encouraged to join the Mormon faith.

(1) This is a great post and ping. "The tyranny of the urgent" characterizes so many posts, and this type of thing is no doubt more important in the long run than many "wolves cried."

(2) The free market is of course the best working environment we can hope for in a moral and free land like America is supposed to be, so much so that even quasi-religious groups like the Free Market Foundation, which is Texas' state Focus on the Family organization, proudly use that name as a proxy for orthodox Americanism. Whenever people like this author disparage the Free Market it seems invariable that all that they really disparage is slight partial use of a partial free market as a means of rescuing mistakes began long ago in a system that deviated intentionally from the free market in the first place. Just because a half-baked pandering to a free market does not work does not mean that there is anything at all wrong with a true free market.

(3) At least they got this right as the conclusion to the article even though they illogically try to relate it to free-market issues:

"Now a professor of education reform at the University of Arkansas, Stotsky sums up: “The lesson from Massachusetts is that a strong content–based curriculum, together with upgraded certification regulations and teacher licensure tests that require teacher preparation programs to address that content, can be the best recipe for improving students’ academic achievement."

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