Restructuring American Education

What will it take to reshape our care-worn system? Money, talent, and time.

By Lloyd H. Elliott

More teachers, more vouchers, more computers, more charter schools, more tests, more federal money, more local control, more, more, more. The calls constitute a cacophony of pleas and threats, warnings and promises from public figures, parents, teachers, and other citizens—all asking for more learning.

As each call is debated, pushed, shot down, revived, and discarded again, we move around the same endless circle, once again looking for a place to stick another Band-Aid on an institution suffering from malnutrition and structural inadequacy.

Now, President Bush and Congress have agreed on a major resuscitation effort, which promises to breathe new life into a gasping, exhausted national school system. Instead of another Band-Aid, it might be compared to the replacement of an arthritic knee or hip. Nothing more; the systemic problems will continue untreated. America's schools...