George Will is supposed to be a conservative who is skeptical of government power and bureaucratic mandates. So why is he endorsing this stupid initiative?

Patrick Byrne, a 42-year-old bear of a man who bristles with ideas that have made him rich and restless, has an idea that can provide a new desktop computer for every student in America without costing taxpayers a new nickel. Or it could provide 300,000 new $40,000-a-year teachers without any increase in taxes.

His idea — call it the 65 Percent Solution — is politically delicious because it unites parents, taxpayers and teachers while, he hopes, sowing dissension in the ranks of the teachers unions, which he considers the principal institutional impediment to improving primary and secondary education.

The idea, which will face its first referendum in Arizona, is to require that 65 percent of every school district’s education operational budget be spent on classroom instruction. On, that is, teachers and pupils, not bureaucracy.

Nationally, 61.5 percent of education operational budgets reach the classrooms. Why make a fuss about 3.5 percent? Because it amounts to $13 billion. Only four states (Utah, Tennessee, New York, Maine) spend at least 65 percent of their budgets in classrooms. Fifteen states spend less than 60 percent. The worst jurisdiction — Washington, D.C., of course — spends less than 50 percent.

When you write things like the plan “can provide a new desktop computer for every student in America without costing taxpayers a new nickel,” shouldn’t alarm bells go off? George needs a Word macro that warns him when he sounds like he’s promoting a pyramid scheme.

The obvious problem is that arbitrary mandates like this are easily evaded and defeated by entrenched interests. Why would we expect that the 65% mandate wouldn’t be sucked up by raises for poorly-performing teachers in the Washington, DC public schools, or wasteful IT spending, or bureaucratic spending reclassified under classroom line items? Isn’t this sort of thing one of the core insights of the conservative critique of government? Why is Will so blind to it?