Charter Schools and Student Performance
One study of 29 countries found that the level of competition among schools was directly tied to higher test scores in reading and math.
By PAUL E. PETERSON
On Saturday, President Obama delivered a radio address on education and he didn't shrink from saying that American high school students are trailing international averages. He sketched out details of a bill his administration is now pushing to revise the No Child Left Behind Act. He proposes to preserve testing requirements but create a better measuring stick, require teachers be evaluated by performance (not credentials), and use carrots instead of sticks to encourage progress.But nothing in the speech or his proposed legislation hints at the need for school choice and competition. Charter schools went unmentioned. One worries that his view of markets in education differs little from the one offered by Diane Ravitch on these pages on March 9 and in her new book "The Death and Life of the Great American School System." In that book, she offers a naïve and static view of markets. "It is in the nature of markets that some succeed, some are middling, and others fail," she wrote.
