Fred Hiatt described what he thought was the best way to significantly improve the educational system: use the power of choice. Highlights of his proposal include:

• Evaluating school teachers based on learning outcomes is difficult – there are too many variables to consider.
• Yet it is possible. After all companies evaluate their employees all the time while taking into account other considerations and inequalities.
• One way would be to give parents a list of schools that they could send their children to, and then let them decide.
• The schools themselves would be independent. They could hire and fire whoever they wanted. But if they weren’t a quality institution then students wouldn’t attend and it would quickly go out of business.
• The idea isn’t particularly new or innovative. This is what has been happening in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and the results of this charter-school system have been astounding.

To read more including how things work in New Orleans, how a charter system and unions can co-exist, more operational specifics of how such a model would work, how such a system has worked in the District of Columbia, how the schools would operate, and why there’s no panacea in public education, click here.

Source: The Washington Post

Via: Newmark’s Door