Those pesky interest groups.......................

Arnold Kling on Caroline Hoxby on education and politics:

"Perhaps most interestingly, she begins the essay by saying that she is describing what might be feasible ideally, not with what the political system is likely to produce. Implicit in this view is that the political process is likely to be distorted by interest groups. This is something that progressives tend to ignore when they advocate for government playing a larger role in education, health care, and so forth."
-as excerpted from this blog post

Caroline Hoxby on education and politics:

"However, it is not the goal of this paper to predict or be constrained by the bastardized policies that fallible politicians often enact when they bow to pressures from lobbyists, public sector unions, fundraisers, and other interest groups. Politicians often misuse resources to pay for support, bribe opponents to be silent, or "grandfather" ineffective programs. They create programs with elements that undermine the intended policy—sometimes through mere incompetence, other times because some interest group prefers that the program self-destruct. While papers on the politics of education and the misuses of government funds are important for understanding the forces opposed to true reform, relentless attention to such topics obscures the possibilities for raising American students' skills."
-as excerpted from this essay