Tom Still explains an concept developed by Bruce Meredith, the general counsel for Wisconsin’s teachers union, that lays out a plan for public education based on the model for pro sports.

From Wisopinion.com:

“Competition and deregulation may improve education, but only if carefully implemented and controlled,” wrote Meredith, who served as interim director of the Wisconsin Education Association Council during a recent leadership transition. “Sports leagues, which are grounded in competition, have learned that only fair and carefully controlled competition can improve the quality of play and produce long-term, self-sustaining successful franchises.”…

Meredith argues that’s precisely how public education should function. It should not be run as a commodity product in a totally free market, but as a service to society provided under market rules that give all “teams” – schools and the children within them – a realistic chance to win.

Meredith says the existing rules of play in education aren’t uniform or clear. The creation of private-school voucher programs, while founded on the notion of competitive choice, have created situations in which private schools can “de-select” students who are too hard to educate. Rules also vary in the administration of charter schools and public school “choice,” which allow some transfers among schools and school districts. Finally, the federal “No Child Left Behind Act” has imposed another set of rules on schools previously guided by state and local standards.

The combination “makes it difficult to determine whether deregulated schools are providing a better education or simply educating better students,” Meredith wrote.

This “plan” addresses the biggest problem I have with school choice and the voucher program: the fact that if you give the opportunity to some kids to go to different schools that may provide them with a better education, you do NOTHING to improve the schools that those children left. Plenty of children are still stuck at underperforming schools and getting inadequate educations. Abandoning the public school system to help just a few kids isn’t going to solve the larger problem.