Size Matters?

To clarify this: I got nothing against "big ideas" per se, nor did I say I did. But I don't think "bigness" should be the primary goal of policy development. Lots of big ideas are bad, and when big ideas are bad, they're bad in a big way. Nor should we write off small ideas just because they're small. Sometimes an accumulation of small ideas has more impact than a big idea. I doubt Alexander's desire to see the next generation of good big education ideas exceeds mine; I'm actually working to try to help develop some of them (and, no, I don't think they have to come from Education Sector). But I think it's equally important to head off the next generation of bad big ideas that will inevitably come along. And most of the good big ideas that stick need myriad small ideas following behind them to help make them work.

That said, I do have something of a knee-jerk loathing for purely symbolic actions that politicians undertake to try to get credit for "doing something" or even "caring about" a problem, rather than actually, you know, doing something that might be difficult. And that's what legislation to make education a Constitutional right strikes me as. Leave aside that it's politically going nowhere and nobody even thinks it is. What on earth would it mean in practice? Wouldn't it just lead to a lot of "John Marshall has made his decision; let him enforce it" type stuff from states that wouldn't know how to get there even if they had the will to? Would it actually help states, school districts and schools do a better job in any way? Concerns like these are why most thoughtful observers and a majority of D.C. City Council members last year turned against a proposed D.C. Charter amendment to guarantee all D.C. kids a "high-quality" public education. Everyone knew it was a purely symbolic act that, if passed, would have amounted to a very sick joke on D.C.'s kids. Wouldn't the same arguments apply to the national proposal?