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It's hard to believe that the Wall Street Journal fancies itself a national newspaper while publishing this largely baseless, political clap-trap on its editorial page: But national standards are no substitute for school choice and accountability, which are proving to be the most effective drivers of academic improvement. First of all, to frame education reform as pitting national standards against choice/accountability is ridiculous on its face. It is a false choice. Plus, the Obama Administration's reform blueprint is so much more broad than that. About the only thing that the WSJ editorial gets right is in saying that national standards "won't magically boost learning" by themselves. Secondly, the WSJ appears to be falling into the "silver bullet" mentality all too prevalent among simplistic education reformers. "Just run schools like a business!" Or, "[INSERT pet approach] is the answer." Yes, we've been down that road b...

It's not often I agree with the Wall Street Journal editorial page, but I guess pigs are flying today. The WSJ 's take, in today's editorial (" Race To The Middle? "), on how the Race to the Top selection process should occur is on the mark: To qualify, Mr. Duncan said states had to, among other things, lift caps on charter schools and remove barriers to using student records to identify good teachers and reward them. He's also said that "there will be a lot more losers than winners." That's a good sign, but Mr. Duncan will be tempted to give more states less money in order to minimize political blow back and in the name of getting all states to make at least some, minimal progress. This is the Lake Wobegon school of education reform, where every state is above average.... But Race to the Top shouldn't be about rewarding a state for its grant-writing. It should use federal leverage to help remove barriers that stand in the way of state and l...