As a perceived 'friendly' and someone who strongly supports parental school choice, I got a call from Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign and an advance copy of his speech to the NAACP last week. McCain would be proposing some 'bold but practical' educational reforms, I was told. I cringed.
In the early 1990s, Harvard Business School professor Chris Argyris coined the phrase "skilled incompetence" to describe the mixed messages that waft through large organizations. A common example is a directive from management to employees to "be innovative and take risks, but be careful."
Management thinks it is telling employees to "break from conventional thinking;" the employee hears only "don't mess up." The result is tweaking at the margins of a problem, which is ultimately destructive to an organization.
"Bold but practical" sends the same signal.
On the rhetorical level, McCain's education proposals are indeed bold. His support for school choice differentiates him in the presidential campaign. He challenges Americans to "shake off old ways and to demand new (education) reforms," but as a practical matter, McCain also sends the innovation-crippling "be careful" message — the feds are still going to set the standards, provide the incentives and bestow the rewards.
"If I am elected president, school choice for all who want it, an expansion of Opportunity Scholarships (an existing Washington, D.C., voucher program) and alternative certification for teachers will all be part of a serious education reform," McCain told the NAACP. Bonuses for teacher performance as measured by student achievement, more local control of federal education dollars and support for "virtual schools" are also part of his serious education reform.
Parental school choice focused on the educational needs of individual students is a bold theme and a sharp contrast with presidential rival Sen. Barak Obama's focus on "fixing and improving public schools." In a speech to the American Federation of Teachers, Obama dismissed parental choice and private school vouchers for low-income families as "tired rhetoric."
What is "tired rhetoric," McCain counters, are the endless excuses of people more concerned about their own positions than about our children. "No entrenched bureaucracy or union should deny parents choice and children opportunity," he told the NAACP.
Bold stuff, but then McCain gets "practical."
Despite his school choice rhetoric, McCain's proposals clear no new ground for meaningful school choice. Demonstrating some skillful mixed messaging, McCain praises parental school choice while providing little of it.
The essence of school choice is parents choosing the best schools for their children from among a variety of educational alternatives developed by many sources. McCain's actual proposals tweak at the margins of the status quo system — a single approach to education from a single educational source. McCain's reforms come with the unspoken but clear message that the federal government runs the show. Under a McCain presidency, John McCain will call the shots.
"Under my reforms, we will entrust both the funds and the responsibilities where they belong, in the office of the school principal," McCain told the NAACP. Charter schools are successful because principals have spending discretion, he noted. "And I intend to give that same discretion to public school principals," he said (my emphasis added).
Don't waste time looking in the Constitution for the clause that gives the president of the United States authority to write job descriptions for elementary-school principals in Woodbury. It isn't there. But the "minor" issue of constitutional authority aside, consider this display of skilled incompetence:
While proposing that bonus money for teachers should not be controlled by "faraway officials in Washington," McCain told the NAACP that, as president in faraway Washington, he would expand support for virtual schools, redirecting some $750 million to create new online schools.
Now how from faraway Washington McCain arrived at a $750 million need for virtual schools, I haven't a clue, but the mixed message to school districts ought to be obvious — "You have authority, but here's what I think is a good idea." That message sets up conflicts that channel energy away from locally inspired innovation into chase-the-carrot, avoid-the-stick policymaking, irrespective of the needs of individual students.
Kudos to McCain for boldly putting the school choice question before the public, but he has a ways to go to get to "a serious agenda of education reform."
If McCain is sincere about supporting school choice, he must do so unambiguously and unequivocally. He must be willing to eviscerate the faraway (and extra-constitutional) federal role in education and trust local schools to provide quality education. Bold rhetoric is meaningless without bold action.
Craig Westover is a contributing columnist to the Pioneer Press Opinion page and a senior policy fellow at the Minnesota Free Market Institute (mnfmi.org). His e-mail address is
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This commentary originally appeared in the St. Paul Pioneer Press Wednesday, July 23, 2008.
