The main difference between the U.S. and the public education systems of other nations is in it’s distributed nature – the district system. A political necessity required to establish the system the district system confers a degree of independence on relatively small political entities that’s unique to the U.S.

That independence was necessary to ensure inequitable funding since that would’ve been the only way to entice the wealthy to acquiesce to participation in the system. Faced with the prospect of not being able to give their children an advantage the wealthy, those with the greatest political influence, would quit naturally fought the establishment of the public education system tooth and nail. In a political battle it’s best not to provide reasons for the most powerful members of society to be on the opposing side.

But what was true at the inception of the public education system is true now; give the wealthy a reason to depart the system, or rather, remove their reasons for staying in the system, and they’ll take their money with them or make a tough fight of doing so. I doubt that, deprived of the option of sending their kids to well-funded suburban public schools they’d willingly continue to fund the public education system. Like I pointed out, the “Robin Hood” education funding system in Texas has resulted in a depression of the housing prices of the wealthy which is simply a reflexive response. A more overt and calculated response is inevitable.

But the district system, even though it’s a distributed system, consists locally of rigid hierarchies with all the usual shortcomings that that organizational form is inevitably heir to.

Districts may indeed try to respond to the demands of wealthy parents that their children receive a better education via “G/T classes, academic tracking, ability grouping, or magnet schools” but the nature of the hierarchical form doesn’t lend itself to flexibility or responsiveness and is inherently resistant to and corrosive of, accountability.

Flexibility and responsiveness are achieved by pushing authority down the organizational structure which calls into question the need for the “top” of the pyramid. Obviously, it’ll take an unusual district superintendent to embrace policies that bring into question the need for a district superintendent.

That’s why I wrote that any of the mentioned innovations are worthwhile. If the problem’s the structure of public education, as I maintain, then anything that calls into question the structure of public education is to the good.

Different policies affect different groups, over time. Milton Friedman expressed a preference for tuition vouchers over charter schools because, he suggested, that the shorter leash on which charter schools operate would tempt the education establishment to reassert control, through modification of charter school laws. The Cato Institute prefers tuition tax credits to vouchers, mostly, it seems to me, because the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel’s anti-voucher propaganda has worked to make vouchers politically unpalatable. I wonder if there isn’t an element of class bias at work here, also; tuition tax credits work only for those who earn enough to pay income taxes.

(Allen): “Ed equity law suits, counter-intuitively, would undermine the current public education system for exactly the reason the district system was created, to ensure unequal spending. Once rich people can’t lavish what they have lots of on their kids in their tony suburban public schools they’ll find a way to do so outside the public system. And system that’s been deserted by all the rich people becomes, by definition, a second-class education system.”

Given the performance of Hawaii’s single, State-wide school district, and the Washington, DC school district, this looks excessively optimistic to me, Allen. So long as voters implicitly accept and endorse political control of school, industry insiders will find a way to cut a deal with politically adept parents (e.g., through G/T classes, academic tracking, ability grouping, or magnet schools). “Equity” litigation will not have the effect its promoters advertise.

Milton Friedman once wrote that a system for the poor only is a poor system. In most of the US today, there is no effective constituency for parent control. Years ago, Myron Lieberman predicted that effective reform would occur after mounting financial committments (Medicare, Social Security) to more effective constituencies (old people, who vote more reliably than poor people) would compel legislators to reassess their options.

What’s really bizarre is that it almost doesn’t matter what’s done – charters, vouchers, tax credits, educational equity suits – as long as it’s something structural that changes.

Ed equity law suits, counter-intuitively, would undermine the current public education system for exactly the reason the district system was created, to ensure unequal spending. Once rich people can’t lavish what they have lots of on their kids in their tony suburban public schools they’ll find a way to do so outside the public system. And system that’s been deserted by all the rich people becomes, by definition, a second-class education system.

It’s quite possible that genetics and race are partly responsible for IQ, but you can find better supporting sources than the paper by Rushton which you referenced.

From William Saletan of Slate:

“For the past five years, J. Philippe Rushton has been president of the Pioneer Fund, an organization dedicated to “the scientific study of heredity and human differences.” During this time, the fund has awarded at least $70,000 to the New Century Foundation. To get a flavor of what New Century stands for, check out its publications on crime (“Everyone knows that blacks are dangerous”) and heresy (“Unless whites shake off the teachings of racial orthodoxy they will cease to be a distinct people”). New Century publishes a magazine called American Renaissance, which preaches segregation. Rushton routinely speaks at its conferences.”

http://www.slate.com/id/2178122/entry/2178703/fr/rss/

I would support a voucher or other system that allowed parents to choose the education that they forced upon their children.

Are all deserving of having someone else’s definition of “a good education” imposed on them? Are all taxpayers deserving of laboring under threat of forcible infection with HIV (imprisonment) to support the people who supply “a good education” defined by others?

I do not see this at all. Partitioning an argument by making assumptions explicit makes sense and indicates common courtesy. Further, environmental factors quite obviously contribute to differences in performance as measured by standardized tests.

If you dispute that different races have different average IQ’s, let me point you to http://www.news-medical.net/news/2005/04/26/9530.aspx .

If you agree with the conclusions of the article (and many studies like it) then are you suggesting that differing educational results for different races are de facto a failure on the part of our education system? That was a point in the Hanushek and Rebell interview Joanne cited. Disputing that was my main point.

And if you disagree with the cited article, then you would certainly disagree with my point.

If your main point was that some teachers are better than others, we are in agreement. I also would like to change our education system so that better teachers are retained, marginal ones retrained, and intractably poor ones removed.

Oh, and I think people with IQ’s of 85 are inferior to people with IQ’s of 115 in the same way that people who can only lift 85lbs are inferior to people who can lift 115kg: we are all people, but some of us will achieve better results in some situations than others. But regardless of race, or IQ, all are deserving of a good education.

Let’s assume that some kids are more difficult to teach for reasons not quite so conveniently intractable as genetic inferiority.

Starting with assumptions chosen for their palatability rather than their factual support is one of the cancers eating American public education.