In his address, President Obama joined his predecessors from LBJ through George W. Bush who offered a lofty goal for improving American education. Instead of promising to leave “no child left behind,” he stated that dropping out of high school is no longer an option in the Obama era. If only wishing it made it so. Unfortunately, promises made in Washington dating back to the 1960s have done little to improve the condition of public schools in America.
One wonders what President Obama’s plans for solving the dropout crisis are. In his hometown of Chicago, for example, fewer than half of all children currently graduate high school. No amount of federal spending, and no federal program will solve that problem. The truth is that fixing broken public school systems like Chicago’s will require serious reforms like school choice that give parents and school leaders the power to choose and deliver the best learning environment for their children.
It remains to be seen whether the Obama administration will support real reform. But history has shown that what we’ve seen from them far so far–increasing federal spending and power–won’t fix the chronic problems in American education.
