A Stitch in Haste

I've noted previously that it took less than 25 years for the Republican Party to go from calling for the abolition of the Department of Education to No Child Left Behind.

With no end in sight:

Out of respect for federalism and mistrust of Washington, much of the GOP has expected individual states to set their own academic standards and devise their own tests and accountability systems. That was the approach of the No Child Left Behind Act — which moved as boldly as it could while still achieving bipartisan support. It sounds good, but it is working badly.
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Washington should set sound national academic standards and administer a high-quality national test. Publicize everybody's results, right down to the school level.

So says — oh my goodness — former Reagan Education Secretary William J. Bennett.

Besides the fact that there is nothing in Article I of the Constitution that even remotely suggests that Congress has any authority to regulate education. Besides the fact that the Tenth Amendment was long thought to preclude federal regulation of education. Besides that fact that essentially every aspect of NCLB has been a dismal failure. Besides the fact that education is not obviously a public good in the first place.

Besides all that, we still get — from Bill Bennett — the assertion that "the cure for the failures of big government is ... more big government."

Madness. Sheer madness.

And besides, there is an obvious and proven alternative to federal testing of schoolchildren. Two in fact.

The lesser answer is simply private testing. Like the infamous "Iowa Tests" that many of us took as grade schoolers.

The even better answer would be the same answer that works perfectly well — amazingly well — for colleges, law schools, medical schools and business schools — private accreditation:

Accreditation is a voluntary, independent review of educational programs to determine that the education provided is of uniform and sound quality. Being awarded accreditation ensures that an institution has been evaluated and that it met set standards of quality determined by the accrediting organization granting the accreditation. A college or university's accreditation is maintained by continued adherence to the set criteria.

Isn't that precisely what Bennett, the educrats — oh, and parents — want? Go figure.

And it wouldn't cost a single federal tax dollar — schools pay for accreditation themselves. So the time-honored principle of "local control, local finance" is preserved.

If the federal bureaucracy absolutely must involve itself, somehow (in the same sense that an addict absolutely must obtain his narcotic, somehow), then it could provide oversight of the accrediting agencies themselves — they have some experience with that.

Private accreditation — even with federal regulatory oversight — would not be adding a layer of educational bureaucracy to our schools. Quite the opposite: it would serve as a buffer, a layer of insulation, to shield students from the micromanaging, Warm Fuzzy Feeling politics of Washington. And it would cost less.

Watching the Republicans self-destruct on education policy is a bit like watching the polar ice caps melt — you're pretty sure it's a bad thing, you think you might know the cause, you think you might even know the solution. And still, all you can do it sit by and watch it happen, because the people who need to listen won't.

More thoughts from the CATO Institute. To The People.