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That is a valid concern that I share. I see two obstacles to private schools meeting demand:

1. Zoning. It's difficult to open a school in a place like DC where every NIMBY has control over how others use their property. This would need to be explicitly addressed for a successful expansion of private education.

2. A market for public schooling limited by regulation will undersupply. Those that are available under this market will tend to skew towards the high-end, with high admissions standards. You see a similar effect in the DC condo market.

3. Standards imposed by the people who made DCPS an unsafe, useless, and expensive jobs program. They have nothing to contribute to the business of running a school, and could only make things worse.

So, I see a few steps that could get us a long way:

1. Easier zoning rules, as I noted above.

2. Little to no regulation from the DC government. Any impediment from regulation will primarily hurt the poor, and there's little reason to think that the DC government could do anything to make a school perform better.

3. Auction off the DCPS assets. Those buildings could be turned into schools that do things DCPS is incapable of, like teach children how to read.

by Michael Hamilton on Jul 17, 2012 1:17 pm • link • report