Back to the Basics to Fix Education?

Sen. Steve Fischmann had an interesting piece in the paper today on education. The basic point is that there are too many people and entities with policy making power, there are too many standardized tests, and education dollars are not being spent wisely.

These are nice ideas, but our schools are not designed to effectively educate children. They’re socialistic in nature and seem to exist for the benefit of the teachers’ unions and bureaucrats. Fischmann’s fixes, absent serious structural reforms, will not be implemented and the system will continue to founder, failing thousands of New Mexico students at the same time.

We do have a model for success that has resulted in serious educational improvement, but Fischmann (and the rest of the Legislature, for that matter) are not seriously considering systematic reform.