If it can be done at all, it will take 15 years and cost billions in new and reallocated funds, but the U.S. has no choice, according to the report. “There is a real sense of urgency at this point,” says Caroline Hoxby, Harvard economist and director for the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Economics of Education Program. “We don’t have any time to waste.”</p>
<p>If implemented, the commission’s recommendationssigned by 26 members from all corners of the corporate, nonprofit, education, and political worldswould revolutionize the way children are educated in this country. Among the ideas: a set of Board Examinations allowing all 10th graders to place into college; improved compensation and incentives to attract better quality teachers; an overhaul of the American testing industry; contract-run schools instead of schools run by school boards; improved education for all three- and four-year-olds; standards for state-run funding instead of local funding; legislation for continued education for adults; a new GI Bill; and regionally focused job training. …</p>
<p>But if experts in the field of education don’t agree with one of the commission’s recommendations, they are likely to agree with a slew of others. Educators agree that the report will serve as a necessary tool for policy makers thinking about future education reform. How feasible all of the 10 recommendations will beconsidering the strong interest groups that would resist such a radical rethinking of American educationis at this point not entirely clear. But economists and scholars would agree that the report does a better job than any other attempt so far at re-envisioning an education system that produces the kinds of entrepreneurial thinkers the U.S. needs to stay afloat in a global market…</p>
<p>The commission’s 10 recommendations would gradually transform locally run public schools into privately owned projects run by contractors. These contractors, made up of experienced teachers, universities, nonprofits, and public and private organizations, would operate in a more entrepreneurial manner than the school districts we know today. According to this system, contractors will be held accountable by school boards who control whether their contracts are renewed. Funding for these schools will come from the state and will depend on student need in each school, rather than property taxes. In return, principals would be granted more autonomy to decide how their schools needed to best spend the money.</p>
<p>“If you align the incentives properly,” says Joel Klein, chancellor for New York City Public Schools and commission member, “you will see much more dynamism, much more entrepreneurship, and much more differentiation, which is not what you see in public education.”
Sweeping Transformation</p>
<p>This year, New York City schools offered principals a similar system, with more autonomy and accountability. Schools were given the opportunity to sign performance agreements that gave principals control over how their school’s money is spent, while simultaneously making them more accountable should they botch the responsibility. The principals of the 321 schools that signed up were given control over 81% of their schools’ budget. “If New York City can do it, anybody can do it,” says William Ouchi, professor of the UCLA Anderson School of Management who has gathered data on nearly 500 schools in decentralized districts.</p>
<p>Redirecting spending is a main issue the group tackles. By shortening the amount of time students spend in high school, the money saved could be directed toward other efforts. How to do this? A set of board examinations similar in structure to the Advanced Placement test given to all 10th graders would allow passing students to progress to college at an earlier age, the commission suggests. Students passing this exam could go on to earn two-year vocational degrees or continue their high school education and take a second set of more involved exams. Allowing students to take the exam repeatedly until they pass would minimize dropout rates, although skeptics like Rotberg worry about such a test’s impact on widening socioeconomic gaps.</p>
<p>The commission estimates that $50 billion could be saved as a result of moving students to college at an earlier age. The savings, however, are based on the assumption that most students would pass the exams their first time around. But “to do that,” the report says, “would require a wholesale transformation of the system,” which the commission says would “cost little, if anything in dollars,” but would require sweeping reorganization.