Restructuring the automobile industry, reforming the schools
Efforts to restructure Detroit, specifically GM and Chrysler, are not too different from our efforts to reform the public schools. Both processes seem to go on forever, never coming to an end, never changing things for the better. (See today’s op ed piece by David Brooks in the NYTimes.)
At what do we most often direct our restructuring and reforming efforts? To failed states, companies, and schools. At what do we never direct such efforts? Successful states, companies, and schools.
How much do you read about efforts to restructure or reform Google or Amazon, Singapore or Finland, Stuyvesant High School or the MATCH Charter School?
This should tell us something. It should tell us that when one is about to play the reform or restructure card one ought not do so, and instead begin again, start over. For allowing poorly run schools and companies to fail is perhaps the very best thing we can do for them, and for ourselves.
Unfortunately this is not the prevailing view of the political establishment. Hold on at all costs the politicians seem to be saying. Avoid social disruptions that might threaten their own positions. Avoid massive job losses even though those jobs are producing products that fewer and fewer people want to buy.
