Georgia on My Mind

Rick Hess has written recently about education policy in the republic of Georgia, describing it as "guaranteed to bring smiles to my friends at the Cato Institute." Hess characterizes it as a "market-driven system," and "a seemingly elegant market design," that has been undermined by a lack of autonomy for schools, "incoherent governance," and "the reluctance of state officials to keep their hands off the schools."

Can't say that this description has me cracking open the bubbly. To the problems Hess has already identified, we could add the fact that there is a national curriculum that even the nation's voucherized schools must apparently use as the basis for their plan of instruction. The secondary system is also compromised by a central government test suite that determines admission to the nation's universities. These tests, apparently having little to do with the national curriculum, have led to mass absenteeism among 11th and 12th graders -- who cut most of their classes to study for them. The state also seems to require students to take 12 years of schooling before being eligible to enter college, even if they could (and wish to) pass the admissions test earlier.

We could also add to this the fact that a shadowy government agency can and does fire principles from supposedly autonomous voucher-funded schools. Even if it randomly selected the schools to be inspected and applied academic criteria in its decisions, such an agency would not be part of any "elegant market design." As it happens, though, it does not use academic criteria in deciding whom to fire. According to a Georgian report Hess refers to, a principal could be fired for having playground trees that "are not balanced properly." [So now we know what Adrian Monk is doing after his show wrapped....]

Georgia, it seems to me, has not yet taken a genuinely laissez-faire approach to education, but I wish them well and hope that they will eventually manage to ensure that all families have access to an unfettered education marketplace.

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NB: Ray Charles' interpretations of "Georgia on My Mind" are wonderful, but consider giving one of Jay McShann's a listen if you're into that sort of thing.