Is there anywhere where a big "stimulus" is needed more than in the DC public school system? The return on investment in education beats any Ponzi scheme, let alone a "standard" investment. The DC public school system is the most cost-inefficient in the country when considering what is spent per pupil for the test results achieved.

Mr. Obama, you say competition lowers costs in healthcare; how about in education? Put the kids of DC ahead of your concern for the teachers' union vote, Mr. President! Let those union teachers get challenged to do as well with their kids as the OSP kids do.

Where would you be today, Mr. Obama, if you were the product of the DC public school system?

it's a sin. it's really a form of human sacrifice -- not with literal killing but by killing off growth, development, and opportunities.

one small quibble: if DC had senators and reps, they'd be Democrats and would dance whatever tune the teacher unions wanted. most likely, the experiment never would have come into existence in the first place.

I like the Harriet Tubman example, but it ultimately reminds us that Duncan is right. If these private schools are working for DC students, there is no reason why the entire public school system in DC isn't run along the guidelines of these schools. And that means all that's lacking is money. If the government would put the necessary money into reforming all public schools along private school standards, there wouldn't be a debate. But I don't see anyone besides Duncan -- not the Obama administration, not the Bush administration, not the media, and not the blogs -- arguing for anything like real change.

Erin has written before that the perfect is the enemy of the good. True enough. But the good for a few, as Duncan suggests, is also the enemy of the good for all. There's no reason why the good for all is a pie-in-the-sky fantasy. There's just a will problem and a priority problem in government. There's always money when our nation needs to lead a foreign war, as there should be when those wars are necessary. But why is there never money when our schools need it?

The solution is NOT to throw money at this. Kids in the DC voucher program get $7500 a year to put toward private school. Meanwhile the public school system spends $14K per student--and fails them utterly. The entire DC school system could go private for half the money it's costing to run the current failing public schools. This, in turn, would allow DC's myriad struggling small private schools--many of which are going to go under when they lose the DCOSP students--to survive and thrive. The problem here is ideology and the unions, not money per se (except insofar as elected politicians are in bed with the unions because union money can control whether they get re-elected).

No, it would cost money. First off, I'm talking about spending money on students, not on buses, security guards, etc. -- all the stuff that private schools do not pay for. Second, private schools succeed in part because of size. To reform the public system along private standards would mean to break up the public districts into smaller units. Third, private schools, with some exceptions, hire more qualified teachers (qualified in their fields, not in education). Right now, the benefits of teaching at private schools outweigh the loss of salary comparative to teaching at public schools. But once competition for qualified teachers increases, salaries will increase. And once public schools are more attractive, fewer teachers will settle for those schools that offer low pay and great students. Fourth, private schools do not have to provide the special ed, health, food, and ESL benefits that public schools must (and should). If private schools were accepting kids with special needs (as opposed to elite students), they too would be spending a lot more per student.

Of course, "throwing money" at schools won't help. But real reform will mean building lots of new schools; will mean all sorts of new bussing arrangements; will mean attracting better and better teachers. All of this means more money -- as well as better spent money.

LB--"If these private schools are working for DC students, there is no reason why the entire public school system in DC isn't run along the guidelines of these schools. And that means all that's lacking is money."

This is like saying "If Toyota runs a successful car company, there is no reason why General Motors couldn't run along the guildelines of Toyota." There are several reasons why this doesn't work:

1)Organizational culture is very real. In the automotive case, for example: Toyota has been very open about the Toyota Production System, even with direct competitors, but few if any have been able to emulate it. (If you have a few decades of organizational culture which includes telling your line workers to "check your brains at the door," it isn't really all that easy to reverse.

2)Legal environment. In cases of both GM and the DC public schools, there are contracts (especially union contracts) which inhibit attempts to emulate a more nimble organization.

3)Scale. As an organization grows larger, it typically grows more resistant to change. This can be partly remedied by proper organization structure (GE, for example, is more decentralized and more entrepreneurial and nimble than GM) but, again, legal and regulatory environmets can mitigate against decentralization.

1. The services provided by schools are not a 'public good' in the sense that the services provided by the police department, the highway department, or the military are. Schooling is readily produced and vended by private enterprise (though much more commonly philanthropic enterprise than commercial enterprise).

2. Public provision serves the purpose of assuring a baseline of consumption in the context of anxiety over the civic implications of allowing full autonomy to families with regard to schooling.

3. The question arises as to the utility of the architecture of command and control in the provision of common schooling. The federal Department of Agriculture distributes scrip to buy groceries and the federal welfare department operates a medical insurance program for the old; they manage to do this without rendering grocers or physicians (unionized) state employees. The finance of schooling can assuredly be handled by the distribution of vouchers. Quality control can be had by required participation in regents' examinations, the publication of league tables to guide parents, and an annual round of charter revocations for the worst performing schools.

Art, you always bring up this idea of a "public good," as if (a) it's set in stone; and (b) privatization should be based on the type of service provided and not on the conditions under which it provided it.

Most areas in the country would not be able to provide competition in schooling. That is to say, they cannot sustain more than one or two schools (and most districts already have a parochial option). Without competition, private enterprise suffers from all the sins of public enterprise (and with none of the public oversight and resposibility).

About 70% of the population lives in metropolitan areas.

There are five elementary schools within a 15 minute drive of my home. I live in a small town in Upstate New York thirty miles from the nearest metropolis. It is conceivable that a process of consolidation would reduce that number were these schools turned over to philanthropic foundations. Tendencies toward consolidation will be influenced by what economic geographers call the 'range' of the good, by economies of scale, and so forth. You've quite a run of retail businesses in small towns; it is just a less sophisticated sort of commerce than you find in cities.

As it happens, there are about 40 private tertiary institutions in Upstate New York. A third are located in non-metropolitan towns or out in the countryside, and these comprehend about a sixth of the students in private colleges. (The very largest private institution in the state is Cornell University, which is located in Ithaca. Greater Ithaca (population 53,000) is the 434th largest metropolis in the United States, just behind Winchester, Va. and Jefferson City, Mo.). Somehow, I suspect you will still find a multiplicity of private providers of elementary education within a ready commuting distance of most small towns.

I am not exactly sure why the pattern of ownership of schools in metropolitan Washington should be governed by hypothetical service delivery problems in loci like eastern Oregon.

Art, you always bring up this idea of a "public good," as if (a) it's set in stone;

I think that changes in technology and patterns of demand have converted some natural monopolies into competitive enterprises. I am not aware of such a process changing the nature of any sort of service that met the criteria for being classified as a public good. Educational services are readily produced and vended by private enterprise; it is not a 'public good' as microeconomists use that term.

and (b) privatization should be based on the type of service provided and not on the conditions under which it provided it.

I cannot make sense of this statement, but never mind. If you are concerned about civil or distributional implications of reverting to the status quo ante 1841, addressing these does not require the erection of a public agency as a service provider, much less a public agency which is a monopolistic provider in each geographic locale.