Regulation and the 'New American School': Society's Cost-Benefit Choice

By Michael R. Slater

President Bush's education initiative, America 2000, would create 535 New American Schools as models to demonstrate that excellence is possible. One key component of the proposal is to cut "federal and state red tape that gets in the way ...''

The goal of a federal educational-flexibility bill and the comparable state measures that will presumably follow it is to free these 535 new schools from the regulatory burden faced by other schools. Research as well as conventional wisdom suggests that the bureaucratic nature of public schools is a major reason for their lower performance than that of private schools. The present regulatory system apparently is seen by the Bush Administration as a constraint on efforts to improve schools.

Many of us share this opinion. But if the answer to exemplary schools is freedom from regulations, then why not remove them from all schools? Why not create 110,000 unregulated New American...