The Return of the Dinosaurs

AFTER THE political meteors that smashed into the nation over the past quarter-century and altered its education-policy climate, I dared to suppose that two hoary beliefs were following the dinosaurs into oblivion. First, the conviction that U.S. schools are doing a satisfactory job for most youngsters, which was shaken by A Nation at Risk and sundry other studies in the early 1980s. Second, the assumption that education quality is best gauged by the level of resources expended and services delivered, which was jolted by research showing a tenuous relationship between money and pupil achievement. (See Rich Lowry’s and Barbara Lerner’s perceptive discussions of “opportunity” standards in NR’s July 19 issue.)

Endangered beliefs, to be sure, don’t vanish immediately. In remote locales and salubrious micro-climates, they may linger on for decades. But these two once-dominant education ideas had at least retreated from view. And their absence enabled some important new understandings to catch on: that we have an acute education-quality problem; that it will be solved (if at all) not by appropriating added funds but by rewriting the system’s ground rules; that “civilian” rather than “expert” control of education is essential; and that results, not inputs, are the only true indices of performance.

About the Author

Chester E. Finn Jr.

Mr. Finn is the president emeritus of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution.

Featured Tags

Department of Education

Bill Clinton

Congress

AFTER THE political meteors that smashed into the nation over the past quarter-century and altered its education-policy climate, I dared to suppose that two hoary beliefs were following the dinosaurs into oblivion. First, the conviction that U.S. schools are doing a satisfactory job for most youngsters, which was shaken by A Nation at Risk and sundry other studies in the early 1980s. Second, the assumption that education quality is best gauged by the level of resources expended and services delivered, which was jolted by research showing a tenuous relationship between money and pupil achievement. (See Rich Lowry’s and Barbara Lerner’s perceptive discussions of “opportunity” standards in NR’s July 19 issue.)

Endangered beliefs, to be sure, don’t vanish immediately. In remote locales and salubrious micro-climates, they may linger on for decades. But these two once-dominant education ideas had at least retreated from view. And their absence enabled some important new understandings to catch on: that we have an acute education-quality problem; that it will be solved (if at all) not by appropriating added funds but by rewriting the system’s ground rules; that “civilian” rather than “expert” control of education is essential; and that results, not inputs, are the only true indices of performance.