Build School Systems on a Solid Foundation

By Gerrit Westervelt and Cassie Schwerner

It’s time for the education policy world to learn a lesson from “The Three Little Pigs.”

To withstand the attack of the big, bad wolf, one pig built a house out of straw, the second built a house of wood, and the third built a house of bricks. All three undertook the same project and had the same goal, but they experienced vastly different results. Two houses—and their occupants, in some tellings—sadly succumbed to the wolf. Only the house of brick remained standing as a tribute to that pig’s foresight and hard work.

After 20 years of building education systems around standards-based reform, poor kids remain too often stuck with the least-prepared teachers; attend school in dilapidated buildings; and lack access to the top-notch preschool, child-care, and family-support programs that can help them start school on...