A Failure to Challenge the Conventional Wisdom of Public Education
Yale University Press • 1997 • 320 pages • $30.00
Socialism cannot work, Ludwig von Mises argued from the 1920s until his death, because of a central flaw—the lack of market prices. Socialists argued back that they could simulate market prices, but Mises countered that pretending to have a market could never come close to the real thing. Following the collapse of communism in Europe, even some hard-core statists admitted that he had been right.
What does that have to do with a book on education in the United States? The two cases are remarkably similar. Socialism necessarily produces poor results because it does away with the market. No amount of tinkering can change that. Likewise, “public education” (another of those mushy phrases that get in the way of clear thinking) necessarily produces poor results because it does away with the market.
In place of property rights, competition, entrepreneurship, and the search for profit, the socialization of education gives us coercion, bureaucracy, taxation, and the search for political power. The incentives for quality and efficiency that drive market participants are diminished and perverted when schools and educators do not derive their revenues from willing customers, but instead derive them through the tax system. That’s the ineradicable, disastrous flaw in “public education.” Market-imitating reforms in education are a shabby substitute for the market itself.
This book, edited by Diane Ravitch, a Brookings Institution scholar, and Joseph Viteritti, a New York University professor of public administration, is typical of the books by educational theorists who, like the socialist intellectuals, know that the system isn’t working, but want to modify and improve it without giving up on the system itself. While there are many insightful points in the ten essays included, not one grapples with the fundamental problem: turning education from a private investment into a government entitlement ensures politicization and decay. Popular ideas such as charter schools, contracting, vouchers, and choice abound, but conspicuously missing is any radical, Mises-like author arguing against continued reliance on government education.
What I regard as the best essay in the book, Chester Finn’s “The Politics of Change,” comes rather close to arguing that trying to reform public education is a lost cause. He recounts numerous episodes in which defenders of the system defeated changes that even remotely threatened their beloved status quo. Consider, for example, the reaction of the New Jersey education establishment when PepsiCo announced its participation in a program to provide scholarships to poor youngsters so they could get out of the Jersey City public schools. Suddenly, the company was faced with a union-instigated boycott of its products, and there was a mysterious wave of vandalism aimed at its vending machines. Pepsi backed down. The education establishment presents a smiling face to the public, but turns into a pack of snarling Dobermans when anyone comes near its turf.
Far worse is the incessant thought-control campaign waged by the educational establishment. Finn writes that it “cleverly manipulates Americans’ strong affection for the concept of public education while imposing a double standard on proposals to reform its reality.” The propaganda organs never stop informing voters that “their” schools are award-winning, progressive, and improving. Furthermore, they automatically label any proposed change that doesn’t involve more money and authority for the schools anti-education. This works marvelously; opinion polls show that the great majority of parents are satisfied with the public schools their children attend and leery of “dangerous” changes.
When all else fails, the public education crowd resorts to political intimidation. Finn recounts how one of those market-imitating reforms was beaten in Arizona when the education lobby persuaded several Republicans in swing districts that it would be wise for them to vote against the bill.
From this essay, one might conclude that the prospects for significant change in—much less the defeat of—public education through the political system, are nil. Finn is not quite so pessimistic, noting some “cracks in the glacier.” He acknowledges, however, that a glacier can continue on, grinding down all in its path, even with some cracks in it. Perhaps people who care about education should just give up on the political process and concentrate instead on creating a modern version of the Underground Railroad to help children escape from the public education trap.
If you want to know more about the problems and prospects of the Milwaukee school-choice plan, what has become of the Edison Project, or the battles over public school contracting, this book will serve you well. If you want to raise your blood pressure over the venality of the teachers unions and their political supplicants, this book will get you hot under the collar. But if you want a book on education that challenges the prevailing wisdom that public education is both necessary and reformable, look elsewhere.
