Scholars Clash Over Education Policies
by Michael Rust

Washington, May 1 (UPI) - The same week that the U.S. Senate began debating President Bush's education plan, the Cato Institute in Washington sponsored a discussion on whether it would work.

The libertarian think tank offered a forum last Thursday on the use of national standards and testing in the U.S. education system, the same day it published "Parent Power: Why National Standards Won't Improve Education," by Sheldon Richman.

At the meeting Richman, editor of the libertarian journal "Ideas on Liberty," argued that federal activism - whether Republican or Democrat - would do little to improve education.

"Increasing the Department of Education's budget and using federal money to force states to come up with yet another set of standards and tests is not going to improve the schools," he said. The administration's proposals, he added, "would impose another layer of bureaucracy on an already over-bureaucratized system."

Richman was opposed at the forum by Eugene Hickok, the former Pennsylvania secretary of education, who defended many GOP-backed reforms, and Alfie Kohn, author of "The Case Against Standardized Testing," who advocated radical reform of education from a very different perspective than Richman's.

While Kohn excoriated much about the current school system, he also blasted the "back-to-basics" movement, which he claimed treated children as passive receptacles into which forgettable facts are poured. A parent and former teacher, Kohn criticized public fixations on grades and test scores in education.

Hickok argued that a reform agenda could make schools responsive to concerned parents. He claimed this had happened when he was part of the administration of Tom Ridge, the Republican governor of Pennsylvania.

· "There's a confusion of genuine success with higher scores on tests," said Kohn.

Richman did not bother to distinguish between reformers like Kohn and their seeming opponents in traditionalist "back to basics" movements. All were welcome, he said.

"Federal activity in the education area is unconstitutional," he maintained. "It's all really out of bounds."

Richman who with his wife home-schools his own children, applauded all alternatives to public education. "This is a people issue in the end," he said. "We're talking about people doing a better job of educating other people."

Hickok, while upholding the legitimacy of government reform, voiced support for home-schooling efforts. He also said that active parental input was essential in any functioning academic system.

· Richman argued that real education accountability would only occur when parents are put in charge. He called for a system where parents and entrepreneurs would work together in a competitive marketplace.

"Only that system would free the entrepreneurship necessary for discovering the best ways to educate," he said. Only that system, he added, would "free parents to act in the best interest of their children."