Top-down regulations are 'a pale imitation of direct accountability to parents'

"It is inappropriate to impose an accountability system designed to regulate a monopoly on a market," Jason Bedrick writes today. 

Private schools are directly accountable to parents, who have the ability to vote with their feet if the school fails to meet their needs. By contrast, public schools are accountable to politicians and bureaucrats, not parents. Indeed, many low-income families have no financially viable options besides their assigned district school. Without the crucial feedback loop that direct accountability to parents provides, states and localities (and even the feds) have imposed numerous regulations to improve quality, generally with little success. Unfortunately, these top-down regulations have become synonymous with “accountability” when they are but a pale imitation of direct accountability to parents.