The Latest Educational "Reform"

How about abolishing the teacher's union? It beats this:

A seductively simple and horribly wrongheaded proposal is sweeping through education-reform circles and catching on with policymakers. The proposal, often called the "65-cent" solution, is to mandate that schools spend at least 65 percent of their money on instructional costs. The idea is to move resources out of administration and into the classroom, where it is assumed that students will automatically benefit from the increased expenditure.

Advocates of this proposal have not stopped to ask for evidence that student achievement is higher at schools spending at least 65 percent of their resources on instruction than at schools that do not. In fact, there is no evidence to support such a claim, though this has not slowed the 65-cent fad. According to First Class Education, the group trumpeting the movement, some 20 states and the District of Columbia are considering 65-cent proposals, and Louisiana, Kansas, and Texas have already adopted similar plans. Nor are supporters bothered that the two states currently spending more than 65 percent of their budgets on instruction, New York and Maine, are hardly paragons of education excellence.

Before jumping on the 65-cent bandwagon, reformers might want to think about whether this wagon is headed for a cliff. There is no reason to think that schools in general are starving instructionally or that all schools have the same instructional and non-instructional needs. Some schools have large numbers of students who benefit from school-lunch programs, special education services, and buses to transport them to school. Other schools have less need for these services. Why should we prohibit all schools from spending more than 35 percent on non-instructional services if that is where their needs are?

School choice would take care of a lot of these issues. If the teacher's union hates it, it's got to be the right choice for improving education.