There are some who look to the past and speak longingly of what was then the Boston Public Schools. There was no busing, kids went to schools near their own houses, and the cost of education was cheap. They speak with nostalgia of what was and urge us to restore the schools to what they once were.

One basic fact needs to be understood about the schools of 30, 40 or 50 years ago: returning to those schools of yesterday would mean wasting our children’s minds and abandoning them to joblessness and poverty.

The reality is that public schools have historically done a terrible job of educating children. Back then, it didn’t matter that much. For many kids, adulthood meant working in an unskilled or semiskilled blue collar job where a basic ability to read, write and do simple sums was sufficient. Those kids didn’t need a good education — and they didn’t get one. Good education — meaning higher education — was reserved for a few simply because our economy did not require it.

The world has changed. Today’s postindustrial, information-driven economy requires educated workers. The number of unskilled and semiskilled jobs is shrinking and will continue to decline. Today’s school systems must educate all children to a much higher standard than ever before.

Something else has changed too. Today’s parents and today’s society places an emphasis on the inherent value of education. Education has a non-economic value. A well-educated individual is better able to maximize his or her innate potential

It is in the face of these changes that Boston’s school system finds itself in crisis. Profound changes are needed over the next several years if Boston’s schools are to meet their moral and economic obligations of creating fully educated individuals.

In my last article I wrote of the elected school committee, its replacement by the appointed school committee, and the upcoming referendum question to decide whether we should return to an elected committee. I wrote of the inability of the elected committee to provide the leadership needed to reform our schools. Is the appointed committee any better? The clear answer is, yes.

When Boston moved from an elected to an appointed school committee, it effectively shifted responsibility for the schools from a committee to the Mayor. Since the Mayor appoints and controls the current school committee, he is responsible for the successes and failures of our schools.

There have been some amazing accomplishments under the appointed school committee. First the Mayor replaced Lois Harrison Jones, a school superintendent who quite obviously was not up to the task of running the schools, with Tom Payzant, a substantially more effective administrator. Under Payzant’s leadership, the school system finally developed and released public reports cards of its successes and failures. The report cards made it quite clear that Boston’s schools were, as a whole, failing their educational mission. Yet until those report cards were issued this year, school officials and elected officials had continuously denied there were any systemic problems.

Menino has taken the lead in pushing for more funding for the system, increasing spending from $314 million to $471 million since 1993. Menino pushed for and won a new teachers’ contract that substantially changed work rules and allowed for the creation of pilot schools that could experiment with education reform. And, in its perhaps its most profound (and unheralded) accomplishment, the school committee has radically reformed the curriculum of the public schools — reforms that are aimed at tomorrow, not yesterday.

The schools are still not perfect. But the appointed committee, with its inevitable focus on Mayoral responsibility, means that, finally and at long last, someone is taking responsibility.

Bring back the elected school committee? Absolutely not. Yesterday’s ideas are a betrayal of tomorrow’s kids.