Some reforms have broad support
Published December 1, 2014
By John Hood
by John Hood, John Locke Foundation and NC SPIN panelist, December 1, 2014.
Although the gap between Republicans and Democrats in North Carolina is rather wide on a number of issues — tax policy, Medicaid expansion, and campaign-finance laws come to mind — there are still some prospects for bipartisan cooperation in 2015 and beyond.
Perhaps the most promising opportunities are to be found in the state’s largest-single spending category: education. There is widespread agreement about the broad social and economic benefits that a better-educated population would produce. And there is ample common ground to move forward on public-school reforms.
As it happens, the biggest differences between the parties involve educational services delivered outside of K-12 public schools. Many Republicans have long championed programs offering scholarships or tax breaks to parents choosing private schools. Their argument is that expanding the options not only maximizes success for participating students but also enhances the performance of district-run public schools through competition.
For their part, Democrats have long championed expanded enrollment in state-designed, state-funded early childhood programs such as North Carolina Pre-K (formerly called More at Four). Many would like to see the state follow Oklahoma’s lead and adopt universal preschool. They argue that if more children came to kindergarten ready to learn, that would shrink achievement gaps by income or race and save taxpayer money in the long run by reducing remediation, high-school dropouts, welfare dependency, and criminality.
Both programmatic claims — about school choice and expanded preschool — are testable. As I read the empirical evidence, I see more support for the former than the latter. Most of the peer-reviewed studies on the topic show that localities, state, or nations with greater choice and competition tend to have greater student success, all other things being equal. As for preschool, there is some evidence for long-term benefits for disadvantaged students attending high-quality programs. There is virtually no evidence that expanding such programs to include children from stable, non-poor families would produce benefits greater than the cost, as George Mason University expert David Armor points out in a new Cato Institute report.
Set aside these matters for now, however. What’s clear is that most Democrats in the North Carolina legislature aren’t going to vote for broader school choice anytime soon, while most Republicans aren’t going to vote for universal preschool. What they might agree is on improving the operation and governance of public schools.
For example, whatever comes of the new commission reviewing the Common Core State Standards, lawmakers of both parties agree that North Carolina ought to have high academic standards and a clear, rigorous curriculum to implement them. Student mastery of this curriculum ought to be assessed in part by a battery of tests that allow for valid comparisons across schools, districts, and states. And when schools as a whole or teachers in particular demonstrate a consistent pattern of delivering higher-than-average student gains on these tests — or receive high marks from other evaluations — their efforts ought to be financially rewarded and replicated as much as possible in other classrooms.
These are school-reform principles that both Democratic and Republican leaders have often embraced here in North Carolina. Former governors Jim Hunt and Jim Martin embraced them. Former legislative leaders and school superintendents have embraced them. Translating them into specific legislation and practical policies won’t be easy. But nothing worth doing ever is.
Similarly, politicians, educators, and the general public have long struggled with North Carolina’s goofy governance structure for education. The governor appoints most of the state board of education. The state superintendent of public instruction is independently elected. The General Assembly legislates education policy, subject to gubernatorial veto. Elected school boards and appointed district superintendents implement policies at the local level.
Most agree we need a different system to create clearer lines of authority and accountability. My own preference is to make the state school board look more like the state community college board: a mixture of gubernatorial and legislative appointees who are then responsible for hiring a CEO. But other models may be worth considering, too.
Education policy will always be contentious. That need not prevent bipartisan action on school reform, as long as lawmakers focus on areas of agreement and keep an open mind.
December 1, 2014 at 8:55 am
Richard Bunce says:
Nice thoughts John but an important element of the Democratic Party base is totally behind the Government Education Industrial Complex whose only issue is increased funding of traditional government school systems and the biggest threat to that is empowering any parent to move their child out of the traditional government school to which they have been assigned by a government education bureaucrat. Republicans would be better off working with private entities with significant interests in a better educated populace especially employers and private post secondary education institutions to set up alternate K-12 education systems funded partially by means tested State expenditures. Using the ACA Marketplace as a template perhaps a marketplace of alternate K-12 education systems with a pre-refundable State tax credit where the parent selects the school and the State sends the appropriate subsidy to the school as HHS does with the ACA Marketplace premium subsidy to the private healthcare insurance company. When the parent files their State income tax the tax credit and subsidy account is balanced.
December 1, 2014 at 11:04 am
Norm Kelly says:
'keep an open mind'. Nice idea. Doesn't apply to most politicians. Doesn't apply to any demoncrat politician. It's either the lib way or no way at all. When the libs don't get their way, they demonize their opposition. When the opposition INCREASES spending on a particular budget line item, the libs STILL CALL IT A CUT! When the facts are NOT on the side of libs, they simply ignore the facts. When libs increase a particular budget line item, but not quite as much as they really want to increase it, they call that increase a cut. How do you negotiate, compromise, or have an intelligent discussion with people who start their side with such provable 'misinformation'? Remember when a every Republican in Washington opposed socialized medicine? Remember when a majority of citizens opposed socialized medicine (at least according to every poll)? The majority are still not convinced that socialized medicine is a good thing. Yet, how did the socialists in Washington respond to this opposition? What did they do to compromise with their opposition? Nothing! They responded the way libs always respond. They FORCED socialized medicine down our throats, along party lines, by using legislative trickery. Sorta the same way our state ended up with a useless lottery! By using legislative trickery, along party lines. Opposition be damned!
School choice may show evidence that creating competition increases achievement but is that REALLY what public school is all about? There was a post on NCSpin a while ago by a lib that claimed conservatives called it 'government monopoly schools' as our way to denigrate it, make it sound like a bad thing. Except that is what it is, a monopoly. Always supported by libs. Competition of any sort for schools is always fought hard by the left. For all other things libs despise monopolies; witness IBM, AT&T, and recently Microsoft. All considered monopolies by libs and forced by law, central planner decree, to be broken up to 'protect' the citizens. School is quite different. Government monopoly schools are to be a protected monopoly, an expanded monopoly, and an ever increasing budget item monopoly. When school competition exists, the private schools MAY not have 'associations' representing them, or more commonly referred to as the teachers union. When the employees are not part of the union, lib pols don't get to play games with the union money, rewarding the union for supporting lib pols. Which takes power, control, authority away from lib pols. Which is to be prevented at all costs.
A Cato Institute study will be rejected outright by the left. I believe Cato is a right-leaning institution, isn't it? Well, if not right-leaning, at least not left-leaning. So, if it's not a left-leaning organization, NONE of the information coming from it will be accepted by libs. They ONLY believe and support research coming from left-leaning organizations. Witness how they 'dialogue' about research and study results. Whenever the organization is left-leaning, it's referenced as a source only by name of the organization. Whenever the organization is right-leaning, it is ALWAYS referenced with an adjective that they hope creates doubt in the mind of the audience. More often than not, they use a negative adjective to accomplish this goal. A right-leaning source is NEVER believed by the left, and they all do their darndest to encourage their audience to also doubt the validity of the study simply because of the source of the study. Getting a leftie to agree that a right-leaning organization is capable of producing valid research results is much easier than getting libs to admit that 'government monopoly schools' is a misnomer!
'their efforts ought to be financially rewarded'. Another idea that libs will never go for because it contradicts EVERYTHING libs stand for. Why do libs love unions? Because everyone is treated exactly the same by unions; it's microcosm socialism. When libs talk about government employee pay increases, it's either across the board or it's not supported by libs. Libs expect every state employee to be treated the same, work ethic, production, quality are not to be taken into consideration in a socialist environment. This is a central tenet in the socialist philosophy. This is another area that libs will fight tooth and nail to prevent implementation. Doubt me? First do some research. Second watch how libs respond if this idea is brought up in the state legislature. They've fought it before, they'll fight it again.
