Liberal Talk Radio

If you exclude for the moment the concept of outsourcing education to “independent contractors” (whatever that means exactly . . .)*, this new report has some exciting new ideas for educational reform:

Warning that Americans face a grave risk of losing their prosperity and high quality of life to better educated workers overseas, a panel of education, labor and other public policy experts yesterday proposed a far-reaching redesign of the United States education system that would include having schools operated by independent contractors and giving states, rather than local districts, control over school financing.

The panel, the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, included two former federal education secretaries, Rod Paige, a Republican, and Richard W. Riley, a Democrat; two former labor secretaries, William E. Brock, a Republican, and Ray Marshall, a Democrat; and an array of other luminaries, including former Gov. John Engler of Michigan, and the New York City schools chancellor, Joel I. Klein.

The commission’s report, released at a news conference in Washington, rethinks American schooling from top to bottom, going beyond the achievement goals of the federal education law known as No Child Left Behind, and farther than many initiatives being pursued by the Bush administration or by experimental state and local school authorities. Among other things, the report proposes starting school for most children at age 3, and requiring all students to pass board exams to graduate from high school, which for many would end after 10th grade. Students could then go to a community or technical college, or spend two years preparing for selective colleges and universities.

I’ve long thought that having students graduate after 10th grade and allowing them to enroll in community college classes is one of the smartest, most efficient ways of making eduacation mroe relevant to kids. Kids would be more self-directed and they likely would make smarter decisions about what to study in college and beyond. Of course then that would make shows like “Happy Days” and movies like Dazed and Confused irrelevant, but I think that’s a very small price to pay.

*You’re just going to freak people out if they assume “charter school” or “voucher”.