Since the passage of the No Child Left Behind law in 2001, the nation has seen no improvement worth mentioning. Democrats don't like NCLB, as a rule, but about the only thing Mr. Obama and his party offer is pouring more money into schools and teacher salaries. It's an idea that sounds sensible not only to teachers and principals but to a lot of other Americans as well - mainly because most taxpayers don't realize how much they are already spending. A survey by William Howell of the University of Chicago and Martin West of Brown University found that 96 percent of Americans underestimate these expenditures, usually by a lot. On average, per-student outlays are more than twice what most people think, and teachers get $14,370 more per year than commonly assumed. Per-pupil spending, adjusted for inflation, has soared in the last four decades with no visible payoff.
Vouchers are a different approach: Instead of enlarging the monopoly, stimulate competition by empowering low-income students and parents to go outside the public school system. Over time, that should give rise to more private schools and impel public ones to do a better job - or, in the case of the worst ones, close down.
