Reform will continue, but what will it look like?
By P.J. ORVETTI
Updated 2:16 PM EDT, Fri, Oct 1, 2010
“It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.”
That’s what Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis wrote in a 1932 dissent. The District of Columbia is not a state, but it has been a laboratory for experiments in governance and policy, even if its residents don’t always like it.
D.C. has a greater level of autonomy now than it has had at any point in its history, but only at the pleasure of Congress. It was less than a decade ago that the federal Financial Control Board suspended its oversight, and Congress can curtail D.C.’s self-governance at any time.
It is hard to predict the future of education anywhere in the United States, but it is even harder to guess what will happen here. When Republicans are in power, D.C. is a laboratory for taxpayer-funded vouchers. When Democrats are in charge, teacher pay and funding issues are at the forefront.
In as much as D.C. can control its own fate, however, positive change is on the horizon for the public schools, without or without Michelle Rhee.
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