Holding schools accountable for student achievement is a case in point. Make no mistake, accountability is a great idea. Now it's a new century with a new president, but still we hear the same old excuses and the same empty promises that this time, really, the solution lies just around the corner. But real accountability doesn't come from politicians. If it did, the past 30 years of declining student achievement would have forced them into the unemployment lines.
Genuine accountability can happen only when parents control education spending.
Parental choice, through such mechanisms as tax credits for education purposes from tuition to tutoring, makes educators accountable immediately, not in another 10 or 20 years. Until parents can demand that schools do it right and do it now, so-called accountability measures amount to little more than fresh paint on an old jalopy. What ails education isn't a lack of standards or testing. All 50 states have exams to test student learning, and 49 states set academic standards. Another test won't stem declining achievement any more than the hundreds of tests that have gone before.