In 1992, I left a great job on Wall Street and, having raised a bunch of money, established a foundation to provide “educational assistance to financially disadvantaged young people.” My new must read became Education Week, whose typical subscriber probably has jaundiced views about my prior life. What is not in dispute in the world of academia, which prefers ph.d types to the ps.d (poor, smart, driven) profile favored by many on Wall Street, is that the intellectual functions performed in the stock market are child’s play compared with those involved in educating a child. Hence, it took me many years to overcome this deficit and gain the insight and courage necessary to issue fearless forecasts.

Finally, about two decades ago – I could safely predict the following:

*some charter schools will fail, an escape route from perpetual embarrassment apparently not available to traditional public schools with comparable credentials.

*some students involved in voucher programs will do poorly in reading and math, apparently not realizing that all youngsters are supposed to blossom when they move from one governance structure to another.

*students in “private” schools will continue to demonstrate more indications of public/civic engagement than those enrolled in schools dedicated to “public” education.

*school choice will continue to attract educational leaders who are basically optimistic entrepreneurs, and who, if they cannot have this outlet for their educational energies, will not transfer to conventional education positions.

*affluent suburbanites will be shocked when .value-added analysis of their children’s

schools reveals they are not as good as previously thought; only the test scores are good.

*said individuals will reduce their whining about charter schools and their foaming at the mouth when the word voucher is mentioned; they will think more kindly about tax credits.

*the statement of leading school choice advocate Howard Fuller that the school choice debate is “not about research, it’s about justice” will resonate throughout the land, leading to a spreading of educational democracy among the currently disempowered .

*there will be more publicity for polls showing that younger members of longstanding minority organizations disagree with their elders and are very much in favor of school choice.

*professorial and graduate student research alike will continue to prove to the sixth decimal point that school choice amazingly does no academic harm to the students who are subjected to such endeavors, which makes school choice worth pursuing if you believe in the aforementioned democracy thing.

*the market share represented by school choice students will double, to 25%, and then flatten out because the traditional school system will have adjusted with more rigorous standards, increased teacher development, enhanced ·leadership training, and greater parental involvement

*people will calm down; discussions will focus on “and how are the children?” not which type of school are they attending.

At this future point, people will notice that, whoops, “undereducation” continues to be a major problem, seemingly impervious to the impact of any and all educational reforms, and they will be forced to pay incremental explicit attention to a variety of more difficult, and therefore almost inevitably, underdiscussed issues:

*Is it economic poverty which creates educational deficits in incoming students, or is it  the poverty of non-family, non-structured living  arrangements  that establishes  a deficit  literally on day one? If bringingging children into the world  without  accompanying  parental  commitment  is  an antecedent negative to subsequent education, should not those in favor of educational enhancement  be  speaking  out on this  underlying issue?

*Do teenagers work too much, no, not on homework, but at paying jobs that have no educational content beyond learning to push the right button on the computerized cash register?

*Are schools unwittingly stopping their educational mission short by pushing kids to think about their time in the building as simply preparation for a life of earning money?

*Ouch, is it possible that all this dialogue about educational governance has zero to do with education and is entirely about power, and that the teachers union does not wish to convey power to urban minority parents, even as it teaches the latter’s children about self-esteem?

*Ah yes, those after-school programs are all so compelling, giving incremental attention to the educational needs of students, but should not the providers of band-aids for broken legs be speaking up about the need for change in the most proximate cause of these deficits, the school where the child just spent six or seven hours?

*Does not the issue of excessive television viewing have to be put front and center, not softened with semi-nonsense about “some shows are good”? Do students really need to be transfixed by series of eight-second images which give them the subliminal message that such a pace of stimulation is to be the leit motif of their lives?

Excluding the advent of iDevices and social media, and their impact on education – which thus far is non-existent actually – the above forecasts do not look half bad.

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