The Great Education Experiment

Of the 50 largest public school systems in the country, 14 give their students less than a 50-50 chance of graduating in 4 years. Across the nation, 1/3 of all high school students don’t graduate on time.

Without functional schools, the next generation of Americans will not succeed and America will fail with them.

Our schools are crying out for reform, yet our public officials refuse to take action. The usual pattern is for special interest groups to claim any specific reform will hurt the children, when the truth is it will hurt them. School boards, unions and politicians protect their jobs while the children are forgotten.

We won’t have bold education reform until we prove what works in the real world …so let’s find out.

Detroit has by far the worst large school system in the country. Only 22% of it’s 9th graders graduate after 4 years. The next worst is Baltimore with a 38% graduation rate. If ever there were two school systems ripe for experimentation, these are it.

I propose using these two cities to conduct a grand experiment. One randomly chosen city would turn its school system over to the Heritage Foundation, a highly respected, conservative think tank, to run for 7 years. The city would continue to provide the current level of funding, but give Heritage absolute authority to implement cutting edge conservative educational reforms. The other city would turn its public schools over to the Brookings Institution, an equally respected liberal think tank, for similar experimentation with liberal reforms.

An obvious question is, why would these two cities agree to give up control over their schools? The altruistic answer is that they have proven themselves incompetent to educate their children. But if these schools are failing specifically because administrators and politicians care more about their own power than the education of our children, they will need additional motivation.

The irresistible incentive would be a 4 year college scholarship for every graduating senior in both cities. $20,000 per graduate would be sufficient to pay tuition and fees for a 50/50 mix of community college and lower cost state universities. Even if graduation rates skyrocket (which is the goal, after all), the total cost of the experiment would be under $1 billion. Congress thought it was a brilliant idea to spend $320 million to build a bridge in Alaska to an island of 50 people. With respect to our wise representatives, this would be a better way to spend our money.

The results of this grand experiment would be able to guide us in restoring our educational system for a generation. We wouldn’t have to argue and speculate about what to do. We would know.