Two months ago, the Manhattan Institute’s Sol Stern ignited an educational firestorm when he declared that, contrary to his past hopes, school choice cannot save American education. Only a focus on classrooms and curricula can do that, he argued, going so far as to laud a “thought experiment” that found a dictatorship with a “rich curriculum” preferable to universal school choice.
Even before Stern’s article went online the responses came fast and furious, especially from people at Cato. Afterward, it generated even more heat, pulling folks from all sides into the debate. For the most part, though, the dispute has been fought long-distance, with combatants hurling op-eds and blog entries at each other. But that is about to change…
On April 16, Cato will be hosting a policy forum putting Mr. Stern, Cato’s Andrew Coulson, Gary Huggins of the Aspen Institute’s Commission on No Child Left Behind, and University of Texas at San Antonio economics professor John Merrifield on the same stage to debate the big question: Is school choice enough to fix American education, or are government standards the key?
On April 16, the big debate comes to Cato. Sign up here to attend!
