.bodytext {float: left; } .floatimg-left-hort { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right: 10px; width:300px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-caption-hort { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:300px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-vert { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right:15px; width:200px;} .floatimg-left-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; font-size: 10px; width:200px;} .floatimg-right-hort { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px;} .floatimg-right-caption-hort { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimg-right-vert { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px;} .floatimg-right-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; border-top-style: double; border-top-color: black; border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-color: black;} .floatimgright-sidebar p { line-height: 115%; text-indent: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar h4 { font-variant:small-caps; } .pullquote { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 150px; background: url(http://www.dmbusinessdaily.com/DAILY/editorial/extras/closequote.gif) no-repeat bottom right !important ; line-height: 150%; font-size: 125%; border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} .floatvidleft { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatvidright { float:right; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} How can you create world-class schools if your teachers are civil servants trapped in a low-wage state labor market?

You can’t.

The Institute for Tomorrow’s Workforce’s agenda for educational reform in Iowa includes many excellent proposals. It is a set of blueprints that will renovate our current public-sector K-12 education model. What is really needed for a world-class education model is a different set of blueprints altogether.

The model needed is one with which we are already well acquainted: the system of colleges and universities in the United States. To get meaningful change in our educational results, we need to apply the following four principles from a market-oriented system to replace the existing state-dominated model:

Limit the controls of the state and federal governments.

The proposed preschool/K-12 system needs to diversify its sources of revenue. State government needs to remove all the strings attached to the funding it provides the schools, allocating funds in a lump sum without restrictions and then holding the schools accountable for the results. Allow schools to charge realistic fees to students who can afford to pay. Donations from alumni and philanthropists should be encouraged and sought out. Utilizing additional sources of income will help offset the squeezing of funding for public schools that has resulted from taxpayers’ reluctance to increase their own taxes.

Encourage competition. Schools need to compete for students. Allow them to act more like entrepreneurial firms rather than like lethargic academic institutions.

Schools, like colleges, can be organized not only for the basic skills, but also for a particular study emphasis. For example: vocational, language, arts, music, math, science, English as a second language, special needs, etc.

Allow schools to integrate with the business community.

Links need to be forged between schools and businesses. Middle and high schools should be allowed to form business incubators. The programs are practical and pay dividends by teaching students the skills they need to master to succeed in the adult work force and showing them why they need to learn.

Make student advancement dependent upon competence, not age level; eliminate social promotion. Reward school employees for results based on merit, with evaluations done by students, parents and peers.

A more market-oriented system of education is better at combining education equity for all students with excellence. It allows a more diverse system to develop. It is more sustainable than the public-sector model.

To balance the demands of educational excellence and mass access needed to flourish in the current world economy, the current school financial funding incentives need to be changed. Our preschools, elementary, middle and high schools are the engine of the knowledge-based economy. Everybody, from governments to companies to parents to donors to students, has a huge incentive to keep investing in them.

Bill Taber is president of Taber Asset Management LLC, an investment advisory firm in Des Moines.