Great stuff by Jay Greene this morning on yesterday’s Fordham Institute victory dance. Greene rips into the notion that conservatives should support standardization of every American kid, and even dares attack Fordham’s calculation that on “the right” only about six government-loathing libertarians have fought national standards.

Perhaps most important, while I explained (yet again) why the Fordham folks and other big-government conservatives will never get the sustained high standards they want out of a government monopoly, Jay nailed the even more fundamental point:

The real divide here is between people who think that policies are best when decisions are decentralized and choice and competition are enhanced versus people who think that there is a “right way” that should be imposed centrally and should constrain choice and competition.

Unfortunately for Fordham, whether we’re comparing the U.S. to the Soviet economy, or educational freedom to government schooling, choice and competition win every time. Every time, that is, except in political decisions like adopting national standards.