The next conservative public ed agenda?

by

by David Safier

I read an article and a column recently that may point to what we'll be hearing from conservatives next session when it comes to education: decentralization. Kill the state Department of Ed, and pretty much kill district administrations.

First, kill the DOE:

Rep. Lucy Mason, R-Prescott says she will introduce a bill that will drastically cut the Arizona Department of Education or eliminate it completely.

[snip]

Through this bill, she proposes to keep the superintendent of schools, which is a constitutional office, and eliminate its 352-500 employees. "We'll take him to the executive tower and use his expensive property for something else," she said.

Oh, and if any education supporters are breathing a sigh of relief that schools weren't cut all the way to the bone in the 2010 budget, it's not time to sigh quite yet.

Majority Whip Andy Tobin, R-Paulden, reminded the superintendents and school board members the Legislature is facing a $1.2 billion to $1.5 billion deficit in this year's state budget.

"If you plan on spending the money Gov. (Jan) Brewer put back in education, don't," he said.

After all, they cut funding this January. Why should next Jan be any different?

Then there's columnist Robert Robb on school district administrations. He suggests

. . . a radical decentralization in the management of public schools. In essence, turn every school into a charter school, independently managed but held accountable to state curriculum and testing requirements, with complete freedom of choice about school attendance by parents and students.

[snip]

In fact, district staffs should become largely clerical assistants to school boards, whose role would be largely limited to hiring and firing principals.

Lest you think these ideas sound good — the DOE and district administrations don't get much praise from any circles — consider the source of the suggestions. These are from people who aren't fans of the idea of public education. Local control may sound good, but school-level control without adequate oversight is a recipe for disaster.

Discover more from Blog for Arizona

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

5 thoughts on “The next conservative public ed agenda?”

  1. I started reading that article today. It was worth reading. However I find that its conclusions that cooperation (laissez-faire) as intolerable to be a conclusion that is quite tough to swallow.

  2. Oh, OK. Now I see the problem. You think health care and education are merely a product like pasta sauce or ketchup. Of course the economic workings of education and health care are quite different than consumer products like pasta sauce. In the field of health care this has been known for a very long time – here is a link to a 1963 paper which pretty much summarizes the reasons why health care is not at all like other markets.
    http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/82/2/PHCBP.pdf

  3. I presume that any group or business that does not need to compete will end up charging more for their service or will eventually provide a service that is inferior. In a situation where there is not a monopoly, such as pasta sauce, if you produce a poor quality item, people will not buy it. If you produce good pasta sauce, people will continue to buy it. If a company was paid to produce pasta sauce by the government, that company will focus on maintaining their payments, not on what the people want from pasta sauce. Making pasta sauce (or health care or education) “free” is likely to increase the cost of either without necessarily making the product or service better.

    http://mises.org/rothbard/mes/chap10a.asp

  4. Thane,
    Since among the countries which have better educational systems than ours there are both systems of ‘monopoly government schools’ and more mixed systems, what is your basis for concluding that a ‘monopoly government’ system is the problem?

  5. What a bold suggestion. I have one friend who has worked for non-private elementary schools for a while now and she had only critical things to say about No child left behind. If federal oversight was a hindrance to the teacher on the front line I might think state oversight might be more of the same.

    My thought is that all the oversight in the world can’t fix a broken system of monopoly government schools.

Comments are closed.