I live in Washington, D.C. a city famous for its failed public schools.  Students who manage to graduate from poorly maintained, underfunded high schools are so unprepared that they can end up taking remedial classes if they make it college.  D.C. may be among the worst public school systems, but it has plenty of company.   As Jonathan Kozol has observed, there are "savage inequalities" between well-funded public schools in affluent suburbs and scandalously underfunded public schools in less privileged areas.

How do you solve this problem?  Kozol says one important step would be to make sure public schools in less affluent areas get the same funding as schools in affluent areas.  That could be solved if the current system, which makes public school funding largely dependent on local property taxes, were changed.  Perhaps a tax targeted at high income earners statewide could be used to close the gap.   Public school systems in less affluent areas would have more money to hire better teachers, purchase up to date equipment, and repair crumbling facilities.  The problem, of course, is that in 21st century America it is nearly impossible to raise taxes for any purpose (a point Principal Seymour Skinner made clear in a memorable Simpsons episode).

People who’d like to see better public schools may wait forever if they are hoping education will be made a priority, with corresponding resources allocated to improve the system.  The Morning Joe crew suggests an alternative solution: perhaps public school systems can best be served by a natural disaster.  Jason Rosenbaum provided this partial transcript from today’s Morning Joe:

SCARBOROUGH: There are of course so many negatives with Katrina. But you said one of the positives had to do with the education system here.

JULIA REED (Newsweek) Rarely do you get the chance just to completely rebuild a very broken education system from the ground up. I mean, you can’t politically just say OK we’re gonna level everything, we’re gonna fire every teacher, we’re gonna start over. I mean, it was so broken that right before the storm the state had taken over the school board, which has basically looted the schools – I mean, a leaky roof was the least of the problems across the board. And now we’ve got all this great money from Eli Broad, from Bill Gates, from all kinds of foundations to build this new network of charter schools, working with the public schools led by a brilliant guy named Paul Vallas. I mean, there’s hope that we might actually have an education system that works.

BRZEZINKSI: An opportunity for –

SCARBOROUGH: New Orleans could go, because of this tragedy, from one of the worst school systems in America to one of the best and one of the most exciting and one of the most innovative. And we’re gonna be talking to Arne Duncan and also Valerie Jarrett. I know they’re looking at what’s going on down here as they tackle education reform next year. That’s an exciting opportunity for the White House and Republicans to work together in a really meaningful way.

This discussion made me think of an op-ed David Brooks wrote just after Katrina hit, entitled "Katrina’s Silver Lining."  Brooks said that Katrina provided a "blank slate" when it came to urban poverty in New Orleans, and he suggested that there was an opportunity to take on urban poverty–not just in New Orleans, but nationwide.  President Bush agreed that "we have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action."  Unfortunately, as the Washington Post noted nearly a year later, "poverty’s time in the presidential limelight was brief."  On Bush’s watch, poverty increased.

I think the jury is still out, so to speak, as to whether New Orleans schools will really emerge from Katrina as "one of the best" systems in the country.  I hope they improve, but I think it’s unfortunate to suggest that failed school systems have to wait for their own Hurricane Katrina before they have an opportunity to improve.  If it’s the right thing to improve broken schools in New Orleans, why isn’t it the right thing to improve schools across the country?  Or do they have to patiently wait their turn for their own natural disaster–and possible influx of private dollars from donors like Bill Gates, which may or may not lead to improvements?

The disaster model for education reform seems like a way to escape responsibility: it suggests that we can’t possibly solve problems in urban school systems unless a natural disaster helpfully "wipes the slate clean".  If we’re serious about fixing schools nationwide, we could decide to prioritize education and put the public resources behind it that are needed to give every child an opportunity to succeed.  We wouldn’t even have to wait for a hurricane.