In his laudatory review of Jacob Huebert’s new primer on libertarianism, David Gordon quotes this:
The independent schools would not be killed off by genuine market competition; they would be killed off by government privileges [i.e., approval by the government to receive voucher payments] to some schools — those willing to accept government control — and not others. A program that would do this cannot be called libertarian. (p. 126)
Unfortunately, a lot of “right-wingers” and even self-described libertarians think that the free-market position on government schools is to introduce vouchers. In their rhetoric, they claim that this will end the public school monopoly, return competition to the industry, give parents a choice, etc. And of course, the free-market guru Milton Friedman himself pioneered the idea, so who could doubt its libertarian bona fides?
But hold on a second. Let’s apply the rhetoric to other areas. “Hey, I think we should give real choice to American families! Everybody should get a voucher, paid for by taxpayers, to spend up to $10,000 on a new automobile. This will give poorer families a real choice, and the competition will spur car producers to offer new options in an effort to capture those voucher revenues.”
Obviously no free-market person would support such a plan; it would represent an unjust wealth redistribution among the population, and it would wreck the car industry. The government would have to continually revise its detailed regulations governing eligibility for the program, lest some shady people set up a scam whereby they would sell cardboard “automobiles” to a voucher recipient, and then split the $10,000 afterwards.
The same is true with formal schooling. If we started from an initial, free market in the “school industry”–with no mandatory attendance laws, no government funds, and no government interference with curriculum–then the voucher idea would smack of pseudo-socialism. It would horrify Tea Party people as much as ObamaCare.
Of course, the big problem is that the government ALREADY intervenes so heavily in the area of formal schooling. That’s why the voucher position seems to be a move back towards liberty.
But is it really? As Huebert notes, the widespread introduction of vouchers could very well destroy what’s left of the independent, private schools. The government would have to establish criteria for which schools were eligible for the vouchers, and which weren’t: Taxpayers would be outraged if Joe Blow set up a “school” where he just popped in DVDs all day, and collected checks from the government.
It’s true, the government currently intervenes in numerous ways with what private schools can do. But the government would have far more leverage if it could make its requirements tied to cash disbursements, as opposed to imposing blanket regulations. For example, if the government simply declared, “It is illegal to mention ‘Intelligent Design’ in the classroom,” there would be an outcry in certain areas of the country. But if the government said, “We will not give taxpayer assistance to any schools mentioning Intelligent Design,” then the opposition would not be as strong.
However, as more and more private schools succumbed to the temptation to accept voucher-funded students, the government’s stranglehold on curriculum would expand. In the beginning, there might be temporary improvements in standardized test scores and other criteria, for all the reasons that voucher proponents cite.
But another immediate impact would be a huge increase in the demand for education tax dollars. Parents who currently send their kids to private schools (or homeschool) would apply for the vouchers. Thus the government would be paying for kids in “public” schools, but also in private. Property taxes would have to go up.
In the end, when everything had settled down, the government would extract a lot more out of taxpayers than it does now. And the difference between government and private schools would have been eroded even further. The government would have effectively taken over all formal schooling.
It is understandable that parents in many areas of the country are disgusted with their government-run schools, and look to vouchers as a “free-market” solution. But this is a grave mistake. The only way to truly fix schooling is to get government out of it altogether.
Robert P. Murphy has a PhD in economics from New York University. He has a new book [.pdf] on principles of economics aimed at junior high school students, available for free download. His online course using this book begins September 8.
jerry3741 6:56am via HootSuite
This man’s frock coat from the 1790s was worn by someone who was alive when George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams were leading our young country. This is the oldest object in our collection.
Pawlenty issued an executive order Tuesday that directs Minnesota state agencies and departments to not accept taxpayer funds from the federal government to set up new government-run health care programs.
