The Sacred Cow Slaughterhouse

Great blog!

Education reform isn't about money. It's about performance for the (vast) sums of money that are already spent.

Introduce a nationwide, competitive examination system with failure a definite option. Make the resulting certificate mandatory for university entry and government work. Tar and feather anyone who suggests "adjustments" to examination scores, for any reasons.

Allow schools to design their own curricula, and hire and fire teachers as the management deem necessary. At the same time, make the performance of every public school a matter of public record.

I think Mike and the WSJ columnist are working off different assumptions - that fear of unemployment or plain hunger will drive people to work. Without a cushy welfare alternative, the WSJ would be right.

Chimp - No offense but I would do the exact opposite. Abolish the Federal Dept of Education and cease all federal funding of education of any type. Let the States figure it out. Federal money has done nothing except clog our educational arteries.

Nessus - I get that, and do agree, to an extent. The problem is, leave it up to the states and you're going to have what you've got today (a few good schools in some places, lots of diabolical schools in others), but worse.

I tend to think education is one of the few areas where central government control can actually work. I guess the problem is it becomes one more trough for the pigs to go hog wild in. Not sure how to fix that.

It's also important. I rate crap education as a bigger threat, long run, than Muslim extremism and the TSA.

I would make it illegal to spend government money on education related to anything except literacy, numeracy, and a few other subjects selected for their importance to a well rounded education that is strong on the basics.