A much more serious agenda of school deregulation and re-invention

From the National Affairs article ?Does School Choice ?Work?? by Frederick M. Hess (here):

If advocates of market-oriented school reform accept this diagnosis, they can take a number of steps to improve their practical and political prospects?..

?. Second, reformers should broaden the educational-choice discussion beyond "school" choice. The narrow vocabulary of school choice made more sense 20 years ago, when online tutoring and virtual schooling were the stuff of science fiction, and when home schooling was still a curiosity. But in 2010, this language is profoundly limiting. In the health-care debate, even the most ardent single-payer enthusiasts believed that patients should be free to make a series of choices among physicians and providers of care. Yet in education, the most expansive vision of choice asks parents to decide among schools A, B, and C. This kind of choice may appeal to urban parents eager to escape awful schools; it does little, however, for suburban parents who generally like their schools but would like to take advantage of customized or higher-quality math or foreign-language instruction. A promising solution would be to permit families to redirect a portion of the dollars spent on their children through the educational equivalent of a health savings account. Such a mechanism would help families address children's unmet needs (such as extra tutoring in difficult subjects, or advanced instruction in areas of particular aptitude); it would also allow niche providers to emerge, would foster price competition for particular services, and would make educational choice relevant to many more families.

And concludes:

It would seem, then, that school choice "works" in some respects and in some instances ? but that choice alone could never work as well as many of its champions have expected, and promised. It is time for those who would like to transform America's schools to let go of the dream that choice by itself is any kind of "solution." The goal ought to be a much more serious agenda of school deregulation and re-invention.

Source: http://daveporter.typepad.com/global_strategies/2012/11/a-much-more-serious-agenda-of-school-deregulation-and-re-invention.html

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