Once again, John Hood’s op-ed (“We can’t all be experts,” July 28 – Aug. 3 edition) requires a riposte.
Hood began by disparaging government experts, contrasting them to “private companies and independent professionals.” Turning to education, he argues that if we don’t like the public services offered, the government should pay private providers for “measurable” performance.
The problem with public education in North Carolina is that scarce resources are redirected from it to private providers whose performance is not scrutinized to the same degree as is public education. A better course of action would be to fund public education adequately. But, like healthcare, convincing the Republican state legislature to do so seems to be a lost cause.
Michael Cotter
Chapel Hill