Bob Schaffer: “The national testing and the new accountability measures in and of themselves, and standing alone, cannot reform…”

“The national testing and the new accountability measures in and of themselves, and standing alone, cannot reform schools. They were never proposed or it was never promised that that would be the case. These are diagnostic tools that are important and can be useful, but they are only useful if there is some consequence associated with it. As that bill passed, it was simply a national testing mechanism. If it has some mandates in it that are going to force States to get into conformity with this new national mandate, then there is some expansion of some Federal programs, but government, government cannot ever be trusted to fix America's schools. Government can be a useful tool if parents are empowered in a marketplace of academic ideas to reform an education system, so with these diagnostic tools the participation of government is important and can be useful, but the necessary element is choice. Why on earth our country over the years has evolved, or I should say devolved, to the system that it is now of a government-owned, unionized, bureaucratized monopoly is beyond me. We just talked about the great advantages for hope and liberty that are emblematic of our capitalist economy. If that is true, and I believe it is, then we should be looking for free market solutions where education is concerned.”