【经济学人】美国教育该何去何从|2016.12.03|总第748期

FOR those looking for encouraging signs about what a Trump administration might accomplish, the nomination of Betsy DeVos as education secretary deserves a cautious welcome. The welcome is because giving parents choice over where their children are educated is a good thing. The caution because there have been enough failures in school reform to suggest that promising ideas can be discredited if done badly.

对于那些正在寻找令人鼓舞的信号的人，事关川普政府可能做出的成绩，任命贝琪狄维士担任教育部长只会受到谨慎的欢迎，因为给予父母权利为孩子选择接受教育的地方，这实在是一件好事。但之所以要报以谨慎的态度是因为在教育改革上已经有过太多的失败了，这表明好的想法如果不能得以好好实施，就不会被人们信任。

我也不知道我想说什么，那就不说哦吧~

Both Republicans and Democrats suffer from blind spots on education reform. On the left there is a tendency to ignore bad public schools, pander to unions and indulge underperforming teachers. On the right the assumption is often that private is always better and that, once a voucher scheme has been set up, the work of school reform is done. The evidence suggests that what happens in the classroom is at least as important as the structure of the school system. This means recruiting and training teachers who give rigorous lessons and have high expectations of their pupils (see article).

共和党和民主党的成员都面临教育改革的盲点所带来的问题。民主党倾向于忽略低劣的公立学校、一昧迎合工会、放任业务能力不够的教师。共和党则想当然地认为私立的总是好的，并且一旦建立起学券制度，学校改革就宣告结束。有证据表明，教室里发生的事情至少和学校体制结构一样重要。这也意味着要聘请和培训那些上课严厉，对学生寄予厚望的老师。（详见文章）

二逼青年欢乐多~

Mrs DeVos has put money and effort behind vouchers, which parents can spend at private schools, and charter schools—public schools operating autonomously. In Michigan, her home state, the results have been poor. In a state where test scores have declined over the past decade, 80% of charters are below the state average in reading and maths. This is partly because Michigan ignored lessons from elsewhere.

贝琪•狄维士投入资金和精力推行学卷，家长可以在私立学校和特许自主办学的公立学校使用。但在她的家乡密歇根的成绩并不理想。在一个考试成绩已经连续十年下降的州地区，已经有八成的特许学校在阅读和数学上的成绩低于州平均水平。这其中部分原因是密歇根没有吸收其他地区的经验教训。

ese is to exercise oversight. Milwaukee, the city in Wisconsin where school-choice was pioneered, began by allowing virtually anyone to open a school. This invited chancers, including a convicted rapist and a man who used taxpayers’ money to buy himself a pair of Mercedes-Benz cars. As a result, Milwaukee is now more careful about who can start a school. So is Massachusetts, which has some of the best charters in the country. Michigan, in contrast, has favoured quantity over quality: the state is home to three of the ten school districts with the highest share of charter students in America.