Why won't education reformers ever learn?

For the past three decades, one administration after another has sought to fix America’s troubled schools by making them compete with one another. Mr. Obama has put up billions of dollars for his Race to the Top program, a federal sweepstakes where state educational systems are judged head-to-head largely on the basis of test scores. Even here in Texas, nobody’s model for educational excellence, the state has long used complex algorithms to assign grades of Exemplary, Recognized, Acceptable or Unacceptable to its schools.

So far, such competition has achieved little more than re-segregation, long charter school waiting lists and the same anemic international rankings in science, math and literacy we’ve had for years.

And yet now, policy makers in both parties propose ratcheting it up further — this time, by “grading” teachers as well.

Of course, there is an education reform that everybody agrees works—one proven to achieve lifelong results, and return tens of dollars to taxpayers for every dollar spent—high quality universal preschool. But that costs money upfront, so shhhh... instead we'll just rely on the magic of free market reforms like charter schools and merit pay.