Susan Jacoby Bungles Education Reform

By Kevin R. Kosar

On March 14, 2010, the New York Times ran an op-ed by Susan Jacoby on education and federalism. Jacoby has written widely and smartly on many subjects, but why the Times felt she should handle this subject is a mystery to me.  Plenty of other thinkers could have done a bang-up job, like Patrick McGuinn, Paul Manna, Rick Hess, or…

But, the editors chose to go with Jacoby, and to disastrous effect.  Her op-ed is a classic example of someone clever writing about a topic that they know little about and utterly bollixing it up.  That the Times should run it is lamentable, and it is one more piece of evidence of the long slide of the editorial page. (Don’t even get me started on Judith Warner and her mischief-making.)

In “One School from Sea to Shining Sea,” Jacoby accurately observes that federalism is partially to blame for the mediocrity of U.S. public schools.  This is indisputable, and certainly not news.  If 50 different states and thousands of sub-state governments all create their own schools, well, not surprisingly some are going to be good and many are going to be bad.  Different locales, different tax bases, different human capital, etc.  It also follows that this fragmentation makes it hard for the federal government to do much to improve the schools. (The same, of course, can be said for other state and local services, like policing.)

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