Thursday, March 06, 2008
Wisdom on School Choice [Carol Iannone]
Mr. Finn applies the same troublemaking honesty to the sacrosanct matter of school choice. He has not given up on charter schools and voucher programs. However, citing his own experience with them in Dayton, Ohio, he now argues that, to be good, schools must not just be free but also internally strong, with a good curriculum and good instruction. Declaring his old beliefs "naïve," Mr. Finn concludes: "Market forces alone will not speedily lead to stronger academic achievement."
This is welcome and hard-earned wisdom from one of our most intrepid and experienced school reformers. Just as conservatives were led to overstate the efficacy of "democracy," so were they led to overstate the efficacy of free markets in school reform. Democracy and free markets are good, but they are only procedural. They are only as good as the substantive cultural understanding that they advance.
03/06 12:36 PM
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