Living by the Golden Rule for Our Nation's Schools

By David L. Kirp

President Barack Obama’s fiscal 2012 budget message contains good news for education: Even as other social programs are on the chopping block, he proposes to spend more money on schools. No news there—expanding educational opportunities has been a consistent theme of the Obama presidency. But if the aim is to boost America’s human capital by altering the arc of children’s lives, education is too narrow a lens. What’s really needed are evidence-based policies that support kids and families from crib to college.

It’s a truism that America’s capacity to compete in the global economy and to govern itself wisely is in the hands of our youths. Yet while we say that we love kids—insert the phrase “for the children” into any policy pitch, the pollsters report, and popular support rises 10 percentage points—as a nation we fall desperately short.

The statistics tell the tale. Although the United States is the wealthiest nation in the world, a 2009 study of 30 countries that belong to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reports that the child-poverty rate in this country is twice the OECD average. We spend a third less than the OECD average on young children, we post high child-mortality rates, and the average educational achievement of an American youngster is the seventh-worst. In the policy version of eating the seed corn, the old are taking money, freedom, and opportunity from the young. Washington spends less than $3,000 for each child—and seven times more...