One overlooked result of state control is that it drives up the cost of educational products. All curriculum has to match state standards - so every company developing products - textbooks, elearning courses, workbooks, et al - has to customize the products to each state's standards. That drives costs and therefore prices up considerably. And then there's the cost of test development since each state needs a standardized test that measures performance against their standards. (The dirty secret here is that most states still use shelf tests that aren't really aligned to their standards.)

State control means that the economies of scale dont' apply to the K12 market. And it's not just in the realm of curriculum. It also applies to products used to manage student data. You can't have one solution for every state when states measure attendance differently. In TN, it's all about total minutes in a day. In AZ, it's fractions of a school day. All the states use different calculations for attendance and funding is determined by attendance. It's insane and NCLB increases the requirements for data collection and reporting - in a market with no data standards. NCLB increases the costs of education in so many ways and the funding really only covers the testing.

And yes, a state can opt out and lose funding. But they don't get to opt out of the other federal mandates those funds cover - like special education requirements. So the argument that states can opt out isn't really a valid one. 

Posted at June 3, 2005 12:16 PM in response to What Liberalism Isn't