infogluttony

matt miller, a fellow at the center for american progress, has written a very thought-provoking article about how to fix our broken education system. in miller’s opinion, the american tradition of “radical localism” and our “obsession with local control”–typified by the power of school boards and funding based on property-tax values–has created a system that is not only unequal but also more expensive. as a result, we are among the highest spenders on education in the world, but we rank in the middle of the pack. his solution is to adopt national standards of evaluation (a proposal advocated even by former republican secretaries of education bill bennett and rod paige) and to increase dramatically the amount of federal funding doled out to education. (it’s currently a paltry 9 percent.) “setting clear external standards while granting real discretion to schools in how to meet them,” miller argues, “is the most effective way to run a system.”

anyone who honestly looks at the way our schools are funded can’t help but see how unfair our system is. since funding is based on property tax values, the richer the neighborhood, the more money a school gets. and any initiative to create mixed-income neighborhoods is generally met with vocalized anxiety from richer people that the poorer people will negatively affect that revenue stream. in fact, virtually every policy decision is filtered through the variable of how that decision will affect property values, thereby affecting schools and the education taxpayers’ kids receive. imagine what our neighborhoos and cities might look like if people didn’t buy properties based on the school district.

this is not to say that, in the current system, parents’ concerns are unjustifiable. you want your kid to get the best education possible. part of the reason i don’t want to have kids is that i wouldn’t want to put up with the anxiety of having almost every life decision based on school districts. this is partially the reason why, since they could afford it, my parents put us in private school we when moved back to virginia: it freed them up to buy a house without factoring in what school district it was in. of course, this decision didn’t solve the problem, it merely sidestepped it.

so miller’s argument seems to make sense–fund education equally and have national standards by which every school district–from baltimore to bel air–must abide.

my summary of miller’s article is superficial, so i encourage you to read it if you’re interested in education reform–or if, like me, you’re sick and tired of hearing everyone complain about it and just wish somebody would fix it!