BrianGarst.com

Three republicans, including a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, argued in a Washington Post editorial that Republicans should cooperate with the White House on education reform.  They note three items that President Obama has called for which Republicans generally support: 1) merit pay for teachers, 2) dismissal of ineffective teachers, and 3) expansion of public charter schools.  Furthermore, they argue that this is a wonderful opportunity for Republicans to show that they aren’t just “the party of no.”

At the risk of being pegged an obstructionist, I beg to differ. There’s nothing wrong with free marketers, conservatives, libertarian, Republicans or anyone else working with President Obama when he is right, but this is not such a case. Yes, these items are things which education reformers want to see happen, but how these ideas are implemented is just as important to get right as the ideas themselves. The President offers a top-down approach. After the failures of No Child Left Behind, Republicans should know better than to fall for that again.

The best way to ensure teacher accountability is not through promises to strengthen the political resolve to hold them more accountable – which never really works – but to actually make them accountable to the most interested party in the process, namely parents. When parents have a real choice where to send their children to school, and individual schools have a real choice as how best to educate those children, then and only then will there be accountability for the performance of teachers and schools. Only then will successful teachers and methods be rewarded while unsuccessful ones are punished.

In order for this to happen, states need the freedom to experiment with different education policies. Hooking state legislators on generous federal grants places them at the whim of federal policy desires. Today’s Department of Education recommendations could easily become tomorrow’s requirements. Given the animosity directed at school choice reforms by interest groups with strong influence at the federal level, Republicans should be pushing for a reduced federal role in education, and not supporting the President’s efforts to expand it, as a necessary first step in moving to school choice and real reform.

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