In a story about the creation of a new research unit at Teachers College, Columbia University, the K-12 trade paper Education Week (subscriber link) reminds us of one reason why schools are disappointing: there's no economic sense in play.

The story is about the relatively new Center for Benefit-Cost Studies of Education, which does at its name suggests: It looks at the benefits and costs of various options in managing schools and conducting schooling.

One of the directors of the center explained the need for such an outfit:

"Educators never really connect the effects of education with the costs. Educators look at costs as constraints on spending and then they ask, 'What do we know about what seems to work?' They never seem to connect the two."

Why the disconnect? For one reason, job security and income in public schools is generally immune from market discipline. But there's also a built-in ideological bias. Says Education Week: "Thinkers from among the field’s more progressive camps, for instance, question whether anyone can put a price on such intangible benefits of good schooling as a more civil society or a more fulfilling life."

Clearly, a lot of educators (where have all the "teachers" gone, by the way?) slept through Econ 101.