Back in June, Peggy Noonan mentioned this in passing (hat tip to Hispanic Pundit):
I was at a Manhattan Institute lunch this week at which Rudy Giuliani spoke. He impressed the audience of 200 or so, which was not surprising as it was his kind of group, urban-oriented thinkers drawn not to ideology but to what works and will help in the world. (I am a longtime supporter.) At one point he was asked about national education policy. Mr. Giuliani said he wanted more national emphasis on choice. He spoke of it as a civil rights issue, and told stories to illustrate the point.
Then–this is the part with the sound of the future in it–he laid out the reasons both parties have failed to push the ball forward. The Democrats fear the teachers unions and the educational establishment. The Republicans are heavily represented in and by suburban and country areas, which tend to have good schools, tend to be happy with them, and are wary of a movement they fear might take something from them. And so the students who need the most help, city kids who would benefit the most from creativity, are held captive to a failed public-education monopoly.
Insular status-quo contentment, meet table-thumping union protectionism. In their own way, both are enablers. But if Morton Kondracke is right in this new article, there are signs that the traditional left/right edubattles could give way to bipartisan efforts:
With student performance still dismal 23 years after a federal report proclaimed "a nation at risk," it’s just possible that a decisive, bipartisan "grand bargain" can be struck to improve the public schools.
The deal would be: Republicans agree to more equitable distribution of school funding — including higher teacher pay — while Democrats agree that teachers should be paid for performance, not just seniority.
Two national initiatives give rise to hope that that the decades-long right-left battle over education, accountability versus money, can be broken at last and the public schools improved.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has launched a project along with the conservative American Enterprise Institute, the liberal Center for American Progress and the moderate America’s Promise that will start by publishing report cards on each state’s progress on school reform.
And the other national initiative? Kondracke points to the Fordham Foundation’s 100% solution:
"Buildings, programs and staff positions are not funded — kids are," the Fordham Institute proposed in a report issued last month and signed by more than 70 bipartisan education experts, though no union officials.
The report proposed that funding from all levels "follow every student to whatever public school he or she attends," that the amount "vary according to the students’ needs" and that funding "arrive at schools as real dollars that can be spent flexibly, with accountability gauged by results rather than inputs, programs or activities."
The "report card" plan is still being decided, so it’s probably best to hold comment until they’re done hammering out the particulars. But we’re very much on board with bipartisan approaches to school reform. As Whitney Tilson, Cory Booker, Dan Gerstein and Tony Colon will all readily attest, we gladly welcome Democrats into the school choice tent. (See also Matt Ladner’s recent appeal to Arizona liberals to quit lobbing hand grenades and instead come to the negotiating table.)