Privatization: A Market Approach to Education
Q. I sat next to an
African-American dad at a speech contest a couple of years ago. His daughter
attended a Catholic school, although he said his family was not Catholic. He
said they chose that school even though it posed a financial hardship because
they wanted their children in a school where the other families put a high
priority on education, and would make sacrifices to get their kids in that
setting. Even though the public school spends more than twice as much per pupil
($8,900 per year) as the private school they selected ($4,500 tuition per
year), they believe quality was better in the private school because of the
motivation of the people who brought their kids there, with far less waste and
unproductive activities. They were highly satisfied with their daughter's
progress, and heavily involved in school activities. They said there's no
question she's doing better than she would have done if she had just gone to
the public school down the street. Isn't that what we want for all kids? Why
shouldn't we privatize education to give everybody that kind of school setting,
instead of feeling like ants in a totally subsidized government environment?
To grasp the key issues of privatization of education, it would
help a great deal to read the 1962 article by the late economist Milton
Friedman, "The Role of the State in Education." That article got the school-choice
ball rolling as more and more people starting advocating a breakup of the K-12
school monopoly in favor of these private-sector, market-based educational
funding programs. They include:
·
Charter schools
·
Homeschools
·
Educational vouchers
·
For-profit schools
·
Private schools
·
Tuition tax credits
Since then, there has
been a great deal of tumult over whether free-market education really does
improve quality and decrease costs as much as its proponents claim. Those who
are for more self-reliance and less government subsidy in K-12 education argue
that students who come from private-sector schooling backgrounds do better in
their careers, are better citizens, and the benefits increase exponentially
when you compare the poorest kids given a hand up to private education through
school vouchers to their public-school counterparts who were forced to stay
put.
Those who oppose
privatization, on the other hand, say that it expands the chasm of opportunity
between rich students and poor ones. Even with a large amount of money in a
state educational voucher, most families would still not be able to afford
tuition at the most expensive private schools, and the voucher would simply
reduce the cost to families that already could afford tuition. For that reason,
tuition tax credits don't aid the poor, since few of them pay much in the way
of taxes, and programs that reimburse them for the money the state saved by
sending their children to private school instead of public school is seen as
another drag on state tax coffers.
The bigger bugaboo,
though, has been the contention that opening a way toward the development of
more private-sector alternatives would destroy the public schools and undermine
democratic ideals such as the provision of equal opportunity to children from
all demographic backgrounds. Give parents school choice that is convenient and
inexpensive, they say, and there would be an exodus out of our government
schools, leaving us with a gigantic investment in empty buildings and major
problems in broken promises to public-school staff.
Privatization proponents
counter that competition is always good, and if privatization were implemented,
the public schools would rise to the occasion and make themselves much more
attractive with a more effective educational product, so that parents would
exercise their newly-given free choice to keep their kids enrolled right where
they were. Otherwise, there's no strong incentive for public schools to improve
their product, since they "get paid" regardless.
So what's the answer? We're
still working on it. There's a clear national consensus that we need to keep
making our K-12 educational system better, but as yet no obvious way that can
be done.
Public policy experts are predicting that the
growth of online educational opportunities will spark more private-sector
alternatives, and that holds promise for more academic freedom for students.
Also, the day may be coming in which children
attend a "free" (tax-funded) public school in the morning, and opt out for any
number of private educational pursuits along the lines of their interests,
strengths and passions in the afternoon, at their parents' expense.
Presumably, this would mean more jobs for all
kinds of people to be teachers, and more enjoyable professional opportunities
for educators who want to work with students who WANT to be there. They could
choose to work part-time in a public school in the mornings, and lead small
groups of private-pay students in the afternoons. Those students who need
remediation or whose parents don't want to participate in off-site educational
programs could stay at the public school as they do now.
A hybrid of market-driven government education
with the freedom and effectiveness of homeschooling would reduce the cost of
public education, though probably not by half . . . but by a sizeable chunk.
So for those who want to be more
self-reliant, there's hope in the future for more educational freedom - at less
taxpayer expense!
Homework: To
keep up to speed on this important topic, see the website of the National
Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, www.ncspe.org, which presents a balanced
viewpoint on this issue, and these pro-privatization websites:
www.sutherlandinstitute.org/publications.asp?c=1
(click on Education articles)
www.heartland.org (search "school
privatization")
www.reason.org (search "school
privatization")
www.honestedu.org
www.exodusmandate.org
www.strike-the-root.com