If Mr. Obama is serious about public investment for innovation—focusing on inventive teachers and schools that truly boost student performance—he must cut ineffective, yet politically entrenched programs. Take, for example, Washington’s Title I compensatory education program, which channels $14 billion each year to schools that serve students from poor families.

President Bush tied big infusions of fresh Title I dollars to implementation of his No Child Left Behind Law. Yet several evaluations of Title I, which tries to improve poor children’s reading skills, have shown limited benefits, largely because mainstream classroom practices have remained the same. This huge program fails to lift children’s learning curves, and yet teachers unions and civil rights groups fight tooth and nail to protect it, a sentimental symbol of equity since the Great Society.