Andrew spends his days (and I suspect many nights) at Dartmouth where, as he has reminded us before, he is on the front lines of some of the biggest education battles being waged these days.  And Pete has a very personal commitment to education that he has shared with us.

But every once in a while I get to play in this area as well.  Several years ago, for example, I briefly was a member of a special committee at a major university in the Washington, D..C. area that was trying to figure out how to reconfigure its student aid program (I left when I was told that we were not allowed to talk about how to lower spending, only loans vs. grants).

About a week ago, i participated in a forum hosted by the Committee for Education Funding in Washington so I had a chance to weigh in on what the education community -- that's everything from pre-school through graduate school -- may be facing as far as finances and the federal budget are concerned.

I listed the following:

Since higher education is my industry, I thought I would take issue with the sentiments expressed by Molly Corbett Broad in today's article in the New York Times, "Tough Times Strain Colleges Rich and Poor."

With endowment values shrinking, variable-rate debt costs rising and states cutting their financing, colleges face challenges on multiple fronts, said Molly Corbett Broad, president of the American Council on Education.

“There’s no evidence of a complete meltdown,” Ms. Broad said, “but the problems are serious enough that higher education is going to need help from the government.”

Merit pay for D.C. schoolteachers is a badly needed reform.  I know from experience.  Over the past four years, I've spent two lunchtimes a week tutoring at Marie Reed Learning Center, one of the poorest schools in D.C.  Many teachers do care and try to inspire their students, but many don't.  Whenever I hear teachers shouting at students to maintain discipline or writing off certain "troublemakers" as unteachable, I get angry, but no one wants to make waves, so complaints get no action. Like a lot of volunteers, I just take satisfaction in getting through to every child I can.

D.C. School Chancellor Michelle Rhee is taking on an education bureaucracy that for too long has put its own interests first and left those of its students last.  I met her when she spoke quite eloquently at the American Enterprise Institute on February 13, 2008.  You won't have to watch this video very long to be inspired by her tenacity in support of D.C. students.  A single mother, Rhee has put her own two daughters in D.C. schools, unlike some past chancellors.

The Washington Post reports today on the progress that Washington DC's schools chancellor Michelle Rhee is making on reforming the public school system. Skipping the background, this passage caught my attention:

Since mid-July, Rhee has tried to sell union leaders and the rank and file on a proposal that would propel salaries to more than $100,000 annually in pay and performance bonuses for many teachers. But in exchange, she insists that they relinquish tenure and spend a year on probation -- risking dismissal. Instructors have the option of keeping tenure and accepting lower raises. New hires would have no choice, remaining on the probation griddle for four years, twice as long as the current requirement.

Stan asks, "Why shouldn't there be a market for public education?" and motivates his question with an interesting article from The Washington Post.  I would rephrase the question as I have done in the title and try to answer it as follows.