Education markets

Andrew Coulson, director of the Cato Institute's Center for Education Freedom, writes one of the best articles on the better direction for education reform that I have read in a long time in today's Washington Post.

Education Standards are Not the Answer

And unqualified, "Exactly."

Why is it so easy for us to trust freedom, markets, and the marketplace of ideas to create competitive standards for achievement in almost field in our lives except for education?

Particularly, as Milton Friedman argued well, when the strongest area of American education - higher education - is so great precisely because of all of the qualities that Andrew highlights as the potential for our K-12 education system.

It is so nice to read someone say this without having to cowtow to the current popular fascination with Big Brother solving all of our problems.

Love,
Ben