The enemy here is not testing, which can have teeth when combined with full parental choice, but educational gamesmanship. With school budgets riding on tests, administrators manipulate expectations and results to preserve the public school establishment. Sadly, it's hard to find out which tricks are being played, because many reporters are lapdogs for liberal educrats, just as CNN was for Saddam Hussein.
Happily, a strategy for truly improving schools exists. It's based on the American way, competition. Grow and expand alternatives to public schools. Put authority over children's education in the hands of parents, through vouchers and education tax credits. Let schools compete for students. Some public schools are solid and would hold their own against vouchers; others, particularly in inner-city areas, need a tough challenge.
School choice proposals are slowly making progress. Colorado has a new law setting up vouchers, and Arizona already gives tax credits for contributions to scholarship funds. Courts have ruled in favor of city voucher plans in Cleveland and Milwaukee. Legislatures in Texas, Florida, Missouri, Louisiana and other states are considering vouchers.
It's now two decades since the National Commission on Education issued a dire report. That broad-based commission warned in 1983, "If an unfriendly power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war." Not much has improved in 20 years.
It's time to stop warring on children stuck in bad schools, and also time to go beyond testing that sometimes covers up deep problems.