BrianGarst.com

Hundreds of schools to be privatized in Los Angeles:

The Los Angeles Board of Education approved a plan Tuesday that will allow outside groups to run up to a third of all district campuses, including 50 new multimillion-dollar campuses coming on line and more than 200 underperforming schools.

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Authored by board member Yolie Flores Aguilar, the proposal was debated for weeks and advocated by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and charter operators like Green Dot, groups that could eventually compete to run district schools under the new plan.

Competition is good, and the private sector is generally better than the government at delivering a service, but whose business the operators compete over is just as important a question to get right. Will they merely compete to please government oversight officials in charge of awarding contracts, or will they compete for the approval of consumers (parents and students) under a system of school choice? Only the latter is likely to result in significant innovation and improvements in educational outcomes.