One place where liberals seem to never learn

The Washington Post features a dismal report on the state of Washington D.C. public schools, this morning.

Can D.C. Schools Be Fixed?

This is my favorite line of analysis in this poorly reasoned article:

"In his nearly three years in the District, Janey has drawn praise for imposing rigorous systemwide standards on what should be taught at each grade, a curriculum to accomplish that and a testing program to measure its success. That reversed a trend of letting each school set its own path, which was widely criticized in education circles."

The results from those efforts?

"Tests show that in reading and math, the District's public school students score at the bottom among 11 major city school systems, even when poor children are compared only with other poor children. Thirty-three percent of poor fourth-graders across the nation lacked basic skills in math, but in the District, the figure was 62 percent. It was 74 percent for D.C. eighth-graders, compared with 49 percent nationally."

The District spends $12,979 per pupil each year, ranking it third-highest among the 100 largest districts in the nation. But most of that money does not get to the classroom. D.C. schools rank first in the share of the budget spent on administration, last in spending on teachers and instruction."

Wow. I can see why Superintendent Janey got all that praise.

At some point, don't you look at this situation and say, "Maybe we've failed. Maybe we need to try something new."

Not if you are the D.C. public schools or their staunch supporters.

That's the problem with politics. Bad ideas and bad situations don't just get too much play. They get imposed on everyone.

Love,
Ben