Public school economics: It's the structure, stupid

From the Champion:

To use economic terminology, the school reform debate is about a bottom line: student achievement. After years of pouring money into the public schools, public school students have not shown commensurate improvement in academic achievement. Parents, taxpayers, and concerned citizens are still not being given adequate answers as to why this is the case.

We noted in a series beginning here, the blame lies with the teacher unions and the rest of the education establishment that daily resists the only thing that will bring real change – and that is competition through the empowering of parents through school choice.

Competition can improve the public schools much like Honda, Toyota, and Nissan improved Ford, GM, and Chrysler. When the American auto manufacturers were selling an inferior product during the 1970s, it was competition from Japan that provided all the incentives they needed to get their collective acts together.