It is a faulty assumption. Thus, when the governor of California tries in a single summer to reduce class sizes in all California primary classrooms, or Massachusetts tries to improve teaching with a teaching exam, or the U.S. Congress specifies which school reform designs are worthy for schools to adopt, good intentions go awry. California creates a massive teacher shortage, Massachusetts demoralizes its teachers, and Congress undercuts reform creativity. In fact, even more factors than overcrowding, teacher skill gaps, and faulty school structures impede genuine accountability in American schooling. Accountability-based reform must also deal with inadequate financing, the effects on school of family poverty, the intransigence of district bureaucracy, the reluctance of students to embrace the goals set for them, many teachers' utter inexperience with the kind of learning policymakers promote, and many teachers' doubts about their students' learning capacities.
Remote control is insufficient.
A second policy-minded strategy of school reform works on a different premise. Where the first is regulatory, the second is deregulatory. The idea is to create a market for better schools by liberating supply and demand from what are presumed to be the fetters of a public monopoly. Voucher-based policies work on the demand side. Other plans focus on poor families and may require that participating schools accept the voucher as total payment for tuition.