The next wave of education reform will require both the right and the left to let go of some long-held premises about education policy. ­Conservatives will need to see, for instance, that local control and funding are no panacea; that the difference between more private-school choice and more public-school flexibility, accountability, and variety is not as great as it might seem; and that national standards and tests — for all their flaws and risks — may be essential to meaningful improvement in student performance.

The left, meanwhile, will need to see that the dream of a single best public-school system, with the teaching profession largely held apart from the usual standards and practices of professional life, simply will not work in 21^st-century America. On the contrary, the model of self-governing schools — whether private or public — with significant control over their own operations, staffing, curricula, and budgets is far more likely to serve the ends of performance-based reform.

Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and a senior ­fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, via National Affairs

PHOTO: Rural school children, San Augustine County, Texas, 1943 April  Vachon, John,, 1914-1975, photographer.