A friend of mine passed on this link to me from the National Review and asked me to comment on it.
Finding the “Moneyball” in Education
Better than the World Series.
By Dan Lips
America's education system needs a Bill James, and a Billy Beane. Together, James and Beane — the focus of Michael Lewis's recent bestseller Moneyball — revolutionized Major League Baseball by demonstrating how maximizing efficiency can leverage limited resources to create a successful outcome.
...Using the analogy of how the Oakland A's baseball club has produced success by focusing on economic efficiency (since they don't have the big bucks that large-market teams have to spend on marquee players), author Dan "I'm not just flappin' my" Lips proposes that schools, using the same principle, should look for ways to improve performance without simply throwing more money at the problems.
Lips goes on to cite a study by Jay Greene of the Manhattan Institute that claims to show that states where parents have more freedom to choose their children's education (i.e. charter schools, home schooling, vouchers for private schools, public school choice) have higher test scores than those which afford less freedom.
Just to check the facts I found other sources which have researched the same thing, including The National Bureau of Economic Research and The Fraser Institute, which support the same hypothesis. My search yielded no studies that would contradict the findings of these others. So, I have to conclude for now that this is valid.
Lips's claim is that giving parents more choices is a policy that costs nothing but brings improvement: economically efficient. I don't know that there aren't costs involved in affording parents this choice. Under NCLB school districts normally are required to provide transportation for students whose parents move their kids to an out of zone school if the zone school is "failing." But such costs may not be too large.
In principle, I do favor choice. Parents certainly should not be forced to abdicate their responsibility of choosing the best education for their child to the state. I would just advocate making sure that the choice, and the information about the choices available, are available to all, irrespective of income level or residency status. The risk of basing policy on economic theory and the free market is leaving an underclass out in the cold.
I am definitely in favor of improving the efficiency of the public schools. (I also wish the Dodgers would learn a lesson or two from the A's in this regard.) School choice is the only application of this principle that Lips puts forth. Others, of couse, might include performance-based teacher pay, which if done fairly, with protection against abuse, I could support. And I'll have to think of some others. I'm not really an economist, nor have I studied how states and school districts spend their education dollars. Nor have I actually seen the statistical results of these studies. Just the write-ups.
So, that all being said. I like the efficiency principal. I like choice, coupled with the assurance of equal choice for all through the removal of any barriers to access. And I would always maintain a healthy skepticism of anybody's study, since most such studies are done with with an established hypothesis in mind, and an agenda to make sure that hypothesis is validated. Thus the results can be consciously or unconsciously pre-determined. I'm not saying that is the case with the particular research referred to by Mr. Lips (I love that name!). Just that skepticism should always be one's posture towards such studies in general.
Let us keep finding ways to improve public education without budening the public for policies and laws which produce little change.
9:26:51 PM 
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