"Our schools should get five years to get back to where they were in 1963. If they're still bad maybe we should declare educational bankruptcy, give the people their money and let them educate themselves and start their own schools"
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William Bennett, Ronald Reagans education secretary and a leading voice for conservative education reform, compresses a provocation into two moves: a deadline and a threat. Give public schools five years to recover their former excellence, he says, and if they cannot, let families reclaim their tax dollars and build alternatives. The rhetoric blends impatience with a market vision of schooling, echoing the 1980s reform climate shaped by the report A Nation at Risk, which warned of a rising tide of mediocrity.
The anchoring date, 1963, is strategic. It signals a moment before the Great Society expansion of federal involvement in education and before the cultural turbulence that reshaped classrooms. It also sits just after court decisions curtailing school prayer and before large demographic and curricular changes. To some, 1963 evokes stronger discipline, clearer standards, and higher basic literacy. But it also predates widespread desegregation, special education mandates, and Title IX; many students were excluded or underserved in that era. Getting back to where they were is not a neutral benchmark, because what counted as success then omitted millions of children.
Educational bankruptcy is an intentionally jarring metaphor. Companies that fail restructure or dissolve; why not school systems? The idea forecasts vouchers, education savings accounts, and charter startups, betting that competition and parental choice will drive quality. It promises responsiveness and innovation, especially where bureaucracies seem impervious to change. Yet it risks fragmentation, uneven quality, and deepening inequality, since markets reward those with information, time, and social capital. Public schools carry civic functions beyond test scores: socialization across differences, a shared public forum, and guaranteed access for every child, including those most costly to educate.
Bennetts ultimatum captures a recurring American tension: reform from within versus disruption from without, local control versus a common public system. The challenge is to secure urgency and accountability without abandoning the public commitment that makes education a public good rather than a private commodity.
The anchoring date, 1963, is strategic. It signals a moment before the Great Society expansion of federal involvement in education and before the cultural turbulence that reshaped classrooms. It also sits just after court decisions curtailing school prayer and before large demographic and curricular changes. To some, 1963 evokes stronger discipline, clearer standards, and higher basic literacy. But it also predates widespread desegregation, special education mandates, and Title IX; many students were excluded or underserved in that era. Getting back to where they were is not a neutral benchmark, because what counted as success then omitted millions of children.
Educational bankruptcy is an intentionally jarring metaphor. Companies that fail restructure or dissolve; why not school systems? The idea forecasts vouchers, education savings accounts, and charter startups, betting that competition and parental choice will drive quality. It promises responsiveness and innovation, especially where bureaucracies seem impervious to change. Yet it risks fragmentation, uneven quality, and deepening inequality, since markets reward those with information, time, and social capital. Public schools carry civic functions beyond test scores: socialization across differences, a shared public forum, and guaranteed access for every child, including those most costly to educate.
Bennetts ultimatum captures a recurring American tension: reform from within versus disruption from without, local control versus a common public system. The challenge is to secure urgency and accountability without abandoning the public commitment that makes education a public good rather than a private commodity.
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| Topic | Learning |
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