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Freedom of Choice in Education

This article appeared in various forms in several different publications in 1998. The publications were the Woodbury Bulletin, the South Washington County Bulletin and the Minnesota Libertarian, the official newsletter of Libertarian Party Of Minnesota

Up until 1994 I was a supporter of public education and its bond and operating levy referendums. I even worked for the 1988 bond referendum when I lived in the Mahtomedi school district. During the years my daughter attended public school in Woodbury, I gradually became disillusioned with the schools. My wife and I decided when my daughter was in second grade that it was time to look at private schools. We were concerned about both the cost of tuition and entrance requirements of private schools. These concerns were based on what we had heard repeatedly from those in public education. Contrary to the rhetoric of those in public education we found the tuition to be quite reasonable and entrance requirements non existent. Both our children have been attending a private school since 1995 and we are quite pleased with the school and our children's progress.

I became interested in learning more about education as a result of the contrast between my personal experience with private schools and what the public education establishment consistently claims about private schools. The reality is that most of what the public education establishment says about private schools is a gross distortion. The truth is that the vast majority of private schools have low tuition, offer tuition assistance, do not have entrance examinations and are as racially and economically diverse as public schools. The public education bureaucracy has successfully used the few expensive and hard to get into schools, such as St. Paul Academy or Breck, to represent private schools in general. This is a distortion on the same scale as using the size and cost of a few of the mansions on Summit Avenue to represent the typical St. Paul home to someone from out of state.

The constant refrain from the education establishment is that the public schools need more money. But is more money really the solution? According to the U. S. Department of Education, inflation adjusted per pupil spending in public schools in 1990, was three times as much as it was in 1960. I want to emphasis this is per pupil spending that has been adjusted to take inflation into account. In addition the U. S. Department of Education in 1992 said that per pupil spending in U. S. public schools exceeded the per pupil spending of any other major economic power. In fact per pupil spending in U.S. public schools was double that found in Germany and Japan. The typical private elementary school in Minnesota spends half as much per pupil as the typical public elementary school in Minnesota. In general these private schools achieve better results than their public school counterparts. Furthermore; contrary to what the education establishment would have us believe the demographics of private schools are very similar to those of the public schools.

Why does this cost discrepancy exist between public and private schools? It is because private schools must compete in the free market where the parents are true consumers who therefore look at cost and results when making a decision on whether to choose a particular school. Private schools know that if they allow costs to soar or results to decline they will soon lose their customers and cease to exist. Public schools on the other hand do not operate in the realm of the free market, they operate in the realm of politics. In the political environment the consumer (parents) are merely a minor player, a mere nuisance. This is especially true as more and more control is moved from the local level and given to the state. At the state level education policies are subject to pressure and financial influence of special interest groups ranging from the largest (the teachers unions) to a myriad of others that try to have their agenda imposed on all students, whether the parents like it or not. If parents don't agree with the agenda they do not have the option of not paying their taxes to support the public school. In addition many parents who wish to send their children to private school are precluded from doing so because they cannot afford to pay for school twice. The political and bureaucratic control of the public schools is similar to that of the failed socialist economies of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe where the political class and bureaucracy controlled the factories. The factories turned out goods as determined by the bureaucrats, instead of by consumer demand. Just like these factories, the funding of the public schools continue whether or not they meet the needs of their customer.

Even on a local scale we can see the public schools serving the needs of the political class and not the parents. A group of parents in Woodbury's Seasons neighborhood who live in the North St. Paul, Maplewood, Oakdale School District, courtesy of a politically determined boundary, wished to have their children attend South Washington County schools with the rest of the neighborhood children. Due to the political rules currently in place, the only way to accomplish this desire would be to have the political boundary adjusted to move the neighborhood into the South Washington County School District. The North St. Paul, Maplewood, Oakdale School Board refused this request because they didn't want to lose the tax base. Moral: The loss of tax dollars to the District is more important than the needs of a few parents and their children. Even though their needs were denied these parents have the great privilege of continuing to pay their tax dollars to support this unresponsive entity.

Even more important than the financial arguments for returning to a free market in education, is the basic ideal which this country was founded on: Individual Liberty. The education establishment is fond of saying that public schools are vital for our country and democratic institutions. They conveniently ignore the fact that the United States was founded without public schools and that education was provided almost exclusively by private schools until the 1830's. The rise of the public school rode on the back of anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic sentiments of this era. The public schools were designed to make these immigrants good Protestants. In other words the schools were seen as a means to indoctrinate certain politically determined values whether they were wanted by the parents or not.

This conflict continues today whether it is sex education, multi culturalism, school prayer, Outcome Based Education and on ad infinitum. If we return schools to the free market, then parents will be able to choose schools that are compatible with their beliefs and values. The free market will allow more choices in many other areas as well. Some schools may offer extensive music and theater programs, others may emphasize vocational courses or college prep. The key is that parents will be able to select a school to meet their needs and values. Instead of the absurd idea that there is one best way or method of learning, a free market will open the door to a wide variety of ideas while not forcing parents to accept nor fund those they belief foolish or harmful. A program or educational method that may work wonderfully for one student may be an absolute disaster for another. A free market in education will be beneficial for teachers also. Instead of having to adjust their teaching method to the latest directive of the education bureaucracy, they can seek employment with a school that shares their philosophy.

The education bureaucracy will attack an education free market on the basis that the poor will not be able to provide for their children's education and that this is why we need government run schools funded by taxes. This too is not true. Before the advent of public schools in this country, education was widespread over all economic classes of society. The fallacy of this education establishment argument can be seen by the fact that the government does not run tax supported grocery stores that hand out "free" food to rich, middle class and poor alike (or at least not yet).

In summary, a free market in education will be more efficient and sensitive to the desires of parents, resulting in an improved product at a lower cost. Parents will have a wide variety of schools to choose from and the never ending struggle over values and methods would come to an end.

For more information on this subject I would suggest the following books:

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