<It's interesting to note that, with the exception of the SATs (our national de facto college admissions exam), private schools are under no pressure to do this. The parents of children attending these institutions (who also tend to be more involved in the schools' operations, as they feel personal ownership) can see their children's progress and have no reason to appeal for testing as proof. Public schools, on the other hand, have to quantify their work in ways that can be put into a bar graph in the newspaper for the consumption of the taxpayers, many of whom are not parents.

This is very true, and very interesting. I would say that the absence of the "one size fits all" education concept is another point in favor of schooling being a private commodity. It's remarkable how many problems with public education are solely the result of its being "public" education.

This isn't quite fair, of course. Even if all education were private, there would still have to be some widely accepted standards that would allow parents to choose a school in the first place, and no doubt some reference to test scores, number of kids accepted to good colleges, and other things would be referred to in advertising. Test scores used to compare schools would have to be standardized somehow, or comparisons would be impossible. Maybe SATs would cover this, or maybe a test given by a private academic standards organization--a "Consumer Reports" for schools. However, once a school had a student, the education performance would be what would keep people coming back.

We accept that critical life support items like food, clothing, shelter, and (until about the 1960s) medical care can be best provided by the private sector, with case-by-case subsidies for the poor or disabled like food stamps, subsidized mortgages, welfare, etc.

Why education is so unusual that it--unlike almost everything else--is somehow "beyond" the private sector, makes no sense. We need to slowly begin weaning our schooling away from the government, and give it back to the people.