INDEPENDENCE SIG} Nae Issue Paper # 12-88 June 8, 1988 BETTER SCHOOLS THROUGH WIDER CHOICE Market Discipline, Not Spending, Is the Key By Warren T. Brookes Independence Research Network INDEPENDENCE INSTITUTE 14142 DENVER WEST PARKWAY, SUITE 185 GOLDEN, COLORADO 80401 (303) 279-6536 FAX (303) 279-4176 il ll Note: The Independence Issue Papers are published for educational purposes only, and the authors speak for themselves. Nothing written here is to be construed as necessarily representing the views of the Independence Institute, or as an attempt to influence any election or legislative action,88 June 8, 1988 BETTER SCHOOLS THROUGH WIDER CHOICE Market Discipline, Not Spending, Is the Key By Warren T. Brookes Independence Research Network The Editors Introductio Five years after being warned we were “a nation at risk" educationally, American schools still show no sharp improvement. Spending levels, already the world's highest, have continued to rise with little show in reform, Restructuring to broaden parental choice is basic to the reforms we need, the National Governors Association has said. Choice was supported 71-20" in a recent national poll. Choice among public schools in Colorado polled 57-35 favorable this year but died in the legislature. When Minnesota did adopt a statewide open enrollment plan a few weeks later, The Wall Street Journal said on page one: “The choose-a-school movement is the most radical approach yet for improving the nation’s public schools. Schools are bad, some critics say, because they have no incentive to improve. Force them to compete and good schools will thrive.” On June 17, 1988, educators, legislators, businesspeople, and concerned citi- zens from a dozen states were invited to meet in Denver for the first Western States Education Summit, on the topic "Better Schools through Wider Choice. The Independence Institute, in convening this regional conference, said it was designed to air the facts and map the strategies for making choice a reality. The goal was to inform those who seek a more open educational marketplace, assist participants in forming networks and coalitions, focus public attention on the choice option, and improve the odds for specific policy changes in our states in 1988-89, This issue paper is published as a briefing document for the summit. It con- sists of five articles by Warren Brookes, a member of the Independence Research Network and a syndicated columnist for The Heritage Foundation. Brookes's theme is simple and pointed: Choice can make all the difference because it "returns the element of competition to public education, with schools vying for enrollments by offering better quality." Table of Contents Education and the Avis-izing of America... 1. eee eee eee eee eee 2 Why We Need an "Education President™. . 2... eee eee ee ee ee ee 5 What Should an Education President Do?.-.... +++ + ++esereeeee B Education Reform: Thatcher Leads the Way... .....++eer rr csr rs Educational Choice in Spanish Harlem. ...-....-a “Heritage Features Syndicate ‘A publi policy news Feature syndicate Andrew C. Seamans Sr. Hugh C. Newton & Managing Editor Herb Berkowitz, Editorial Directors For Release: April 21, 1988 "The Economy in Mind" First of a series EDUCATION AND THE AVIS-IZING OF AMERICA By Warren T. Brookes In an otherwise substanceless campaign, Vice President George Bush may have stumbled on a good issue, when he announced that he would "like to be known as the education president. Although he has done nothing to develop this theme beyond Proposing a yuppie-style, IRA-type tax-deferred savings account for college tuition costs -- he could easily turn this theme into a major campaign agenda that deals with our biggest perceived challenge: the decline in the U.S. relative competitive position. While that perception is vastly overdrawn, a growing number of Americans are worried that our nation is in decline. why not? Newsweek, Time, CBS, ABC, and NBC are all telling them, that America, like avis, " s only Number 2, so we have to try harder." The polls also show a significant share of Americans, from left to right, blame this decline on the breakdown in education. That breakdown is so severe in urban areas that even an extremist like Paterson, N.J.'s High School Superintendent Joe Clark ("The Bat Man with the Bull Horn") gets powerful support from frustrated parents. Alan Bloom's brilliant book attacking liberal relativism in higher education, "The Closing of the American Mind," has attracted far heavier consumer interest than "The Rise and Fall of The Great Powers" by leftish English historian Paul Kennedy. That's because a generation of Americans has grown up culturally deprived and intellectually undernourished -- and the brutal realities 214 Massachusetts Avenue, N.E. © Washington, D.C, 20002 * (202) 543-0440 ens