The Dawn Treader

Calling the Cato institute "libertarian-leaning" is rather like calling Jeff Clinton "mildly Christian-ish." :)

That said, I have to say you're really missing the boat on this, and falling for some fairly obvious spin. First and foremost, the entire "school choice" debate is a sham, because as you of all people know, you have choices right now. You can (and do, in your case) home school. You can put your child into any number of private and parochial schools. Heck, you can even send your child to a boarding school! And even within the context of public education, you can move to a district that better suits you -- people do this all the time.

The only thing you can't do is expet the government to pay for it when you make these non-public-school choices. But you're still more than free to make them. There's no law against any of it.

And as to this:I thought America had an gushy love affair with the word choice. I seem to run into that word all the time when debating prolife -vs- abortion. I guess I was wrong. Choice appears to be a yucky word for liberals when it comes to schools.Well, that's frankly beneath you. If the anti-voucher crowd were arguing for the complete criminalization of private, parochial, and home-schooling, or if the "pro-choice" crowd were arguing for free government-paid abortions for everyone, you might have a point here.One size fits all ain't gonna work folks.As we've covered before, it actually generally works quite well. Sure, you get a few complain loudly, and who are good at getting press, but by and large their arguments are wholly disingenuous. They claim to care about "choice" (which already exists) when what they actually want is one (or both) of two things: government funding for religious education (most fall into this category), and/or eliminating public schooling entirely (which is where the CATO folks generally line up).The separation of church and state nuts like Barry Lynn can take a hike.Again, this is beneath you.Tax credits for personal use and / or donations to private scholarship funds.As I've said many times before, I'll support this when I get tax credits for not having any children. (Actually, in truth, I wouldn't, because I actually have a greater sense of social responsibility than that, and am not quite that selfish.)

But why not do this the private way I've seen argued (maybe by you)? Why not establish a private, non-profit voucher system, wholly supported by private donations (rather than by tax dollars)? Start a system like this, demonstrate that it works, and then you'd have an excellent jumping-off point for arguing that the government system (which, despite what its detractors say, has actually worked quite well on the whole) should more closely resemble your way.

As to the idea that school choice "works," that simply hasn't borne out in any US study, despite Coulson's patently false claims to the contrary. I assume the only "high-quality" studies he acknowledges are the ones that confirm the results he's looking for, because when David and I went over this a couple of months ago, the results we found were extremely mixed and nowhere close to compelling.

And using Africa and Central Asia as your benchmark, frankly, smacks of desperation. Even the poorest areas of America can not be described as "destitute," and we as a society can certainly afford to provide quality education for everyone -- something that simply isn't true in Central Asia and especially Africa. The question is (and I don't know the answer to this) do the students perform better in private schools in that region because the private schools are especially good, or is it because the public schools are especially bad?

As to Congress "seeing the light," color me highly skeptical on that one, too. What happened in the wake of Katrina was driven in part by necessity, but mostly was an example of politicians opportunistically taking advantage of an extreme situation to throw a bone to a vocal constituency.

Finally, Paul raises a great point about "choice." I was going to use highways as my example -- I don't get to pick and choose which highways my tax dollars support, and I don't get any special tax credits for using Highway Y instead of Highway X, or for using state highways to the exclusion of federal ones. I've long argued that education much closer to infrastructure than it is to product or service.

The only thing you can't do is expet the government to pay for it

True ... but I can expect them to let me keep more of my own money if I choose not to use the public schools.

Armies and highways aren't good examples from an economic perspective. As we've discussed before at length, schools are not "public goods" on the economic sense, while armies and highways are. The economic theory (and practice) is completely different.

Somehow this decision is unsurprising for those of us who recall the Florida Supreme Court's predispositions during Bush vs. Gore five years ago.

If equality of access was the key issue in the litigation, I wonder if Florida could have avoided this outcome by offering choice to everyone, instead of merely to those at horrible schools.

David:I dunno, maybe you should get tax credits if you don't have any kids in school.And that gets us into a separate argument, about whether we should have public schooling at all. What you're essentially arguing is that schools should be mostly or exclusively paid for by the people who are actively using them, and for a myriad of reasons, that simply won't work in our economy and our system of government. At least not if we're going to expect (or require) everyone to get educated.

Essentially, you're arguing against public education. Not the current manifestation, but the very idea of it. While that's certainly your right, I wouldn't expect the masses to agree.Highways are essentially non-excludable. You couldn't reasonably screen Route 95 to remove the drivers that had elected a tax credit because they are choosing to use only private roads.No, but you could exclude people who don't drive at all by financing them primarily or solely through auto registration fees, fuel taxes, etc. And you could even exclude particular highways by moving to a toll/turnpike system, as many states have done. But again, we're talking about ivory tower economic theories that look pretty on the page, but get extremely messy in the place we call "real life."

Frankly, however, I don't want to rehash the argument where we conflate the colloquial understanding of "public good" (i.e., "general or universal benefit") and the strict economics textbook definition. It's extremely difficult to argue with a straight face that an educated populace doesn't benefit virtually the entire populace. We as a nation have elected to share the cost of those things that benefit the populace as a whole, whether or not our economics professor approves. :)You can, however, easily exclude from the public schools those who have elected tax credits. Schools are excludable resources.Only in that very narrow sense. And think, for a moment, about what you're suggesting. Suppose Irresponsible Parent X opts to take the tax credits, and then doesn't actually educate their child anywhere. Or they simply run out of money and can no longer afford to continue sending their child to private school. The child now suffers unnecessarily for the sins of the parent, because the child is now closed off from the public school option. (Or, alternatively, the parents who've been funding public education all along are cheated because this knucklehead joins the game late, having not paid at all for the previous X years...)

Further, the method of financing you're suggesting makes an erroneous assumption: that schooling is paid for mostly (or wholly) by people who are currently using the schools. As I demonstrated at length in a prior such debate, the current users of a school pay only a small portion of the costs required to run that school. To do as you suggest would require a fundamental and universal restructuring -- at the most basic levels -- of how schools are paid for, putting the burden mostly if not wholly on those who currently have children enrolled.

Honestly, how many American families do you think could afford to pay for even half the cost of a quality education for their kids? I'd bet it's less than a quarter. Even if I give you three-quarters, that still leaves millions behind.

As a Christian, the issue for me is not so much freedom of choice, but how best to help my neighbor.
So I would first think we have to make sure the public schools are strong and doing a good job of educating our fellow citizens. I don't think that can be accomplished by siphoning money away from the public schools to support private schools.
Ralph

"Evolution has been the official government curriculum for several decades, and only a third of Americans think it is well-supported by the evidence. Slightly more than half adhere to the biblical creation story. So we’ve tried the official knowledge thing, and it doesn’t work.

Would-be instructional dictators should also remember that they will not always be the ones seated in the back of the flag-adorned staff car. While today’s official dogma may delight them, tomorrow’s could easily appall.

Surely, in the freest country on Earth, it’s time to give educational freedom a chance."

Andrew Coulson

In my expericnce there always has been educatinol freedom in this country.
My parents sent me and my siblings to a Lutheran parochial school for our grade-school education. No one prevented them from doing so.
In my high school years we travelled extensively around the country. I attended 5 different public high scools. All were quite different - they certainly could not be described as being "one size."

I think you make a compelling argument David. The "that won't work in the real world" rejoinder I keep reading is not convincing.

What changes one's perspective on this issue is to have your child sit under teaching that you clearly think is completely false. Tom has no children, but if he did, there is little that is taught in Govt controlled schools that he would feel is offensive to his secular world and life view.

Now, once ID begins to be taught in Govt controlled science classrooms, everything would of course, change. Which is exactly the point. When the shoe is on the other foot, it forces one to rethink their position. That is Coulson's point. Which is why it is nice to have options like David is suggesting -- even a paradigm shift (introducing competition etc) -- that ultimately gives choices in education for people who could not afford otherwise.

Choice is a good thing in a pluaralist society.

"In any case, I think it was tgirsch who raised the best argument against all this in an earlier thread; if a free education market works so well to inspire competition, why are universities so expensive?"

Expound upon this. Can you clarify what this argument is? I am not following.

It's not at all clear that university education is a case of market failure. I don't have my hands on any right now, but I believe there are studies showing that the investment in a university education yields impressive returns over the course of a lifetime. The market may well be valuing university education appropriately, even though it is perceived as "expensive."

It is possible that the effects of branding might be distorting higher education markets to some extent. On the other hand, I believe that data would show that a Harvard degree, though more expensive than, say, a Penn State degree, on the whole pays higher returns over the average graduate's lifetime.

So, when you speak of something being "impressively affordable," I might argue that higher education is "affordable" in the sense of being a superb investment. For the price of a luxury car, which depreciates to half its value in a day, you get an investment that likely will pay double-digit returns. The only comparable investment for most of us regular folks is residential real estate, which is far more costly than education (and indeed often is used to finance education).

Of course, in terms of the average person's available savings and cash flow, higher education can be enormously burdensome. That isn't the fault of the market, however. We all have to make choices about how to use and invest our income, and this is one of them.

The biggest flaw in a market approach to secondary education, I think, is the equity concern. The market price for better quality education might be too high for many families. Thus, there may be a place for some degree of regulation as well as for scholarships and the like. And, as in higher education, many institutions will fill market niches to offer high quality education at prices that are lower than the "best" brand names.

I wasn't arguing that universities represent a market failure at all - they do what markets do very well, which is to transfer capital from the consumer to the company (or institution) in the largest quantities sustainable. One of the side effects of that 'sustainability', of course, is that competition should drive the down the amount of capital that can be transferred. Clearly the institutions have done that very well (I've attended 3 universities and been associated with several more, and haven't seen one that is even vaguely efficient yet, despite as much as 7 centuries of continuous competition).

Nonetheless, an abstract rational actor would look at the cost/benefit equation and realize that the university education was probably worthwhile. But a very large subset of rational actors, myself included had I not been educated in England, would weigh the probably that it wouldn't be worth it against the huge cost today, and not go. Now transfer that down to secondary and even primary education, and what you get is a bunch of kids who can read well enough to know how much machine the change says to give the customer. That's fine I guess, if you want to live in a third-rate country.

Jeff:Surely, in the freest country on Earth, it’s time to give educational freedom a chance.You're missing (or dodging) the point: you have educational freedom -- an unprecedented amount of it -- right now. That's what's so frustrating about the whole argument. It describes things as compulsory which are clearly not compulsory.One size clearly does not fit all.Perhaps not, but it clearly fits the vast majority. And it would fit even more, even better, if certain vocal minorities didn't constantly try to wedge their ideologies into the mess, just because things like nearly-universally-accepted science (which are generally covered for less than a week in an entire middle- and high-school education) offend their personal sensibilities.

Let the public schools teach the basics of math, language, science, and history, and leave the ideology to parents and churches and community groups, and we'd do quite fine.

David:But remember, there are legal standards that must be met even by private or home schools. If a child doesn't sit for the required state exams or fails them, the state can intervene.But unless you have constant regulation and monitoring, how do you enforce those standards? And I thought regulation and monitoring were eeeeee-vil! :) More seriously, though, how do you rectify these problems when they show up? Jail the parents for squandering the tax credits? Remember that with freedom of choice comes freedom to make bad choices, and once again we have the kids suffering for the sins of their parents.Maybe not an awful idea, if competition is introduced along with it, and there is some safety net for those who can least afford it.Well, unless you can absolutely guarantee that it will work better than the current system, it is an awful idea. Which was my point in demonstrating how far-reaching the changes would have to be. It's a huge gamble to take.

Free enterprise schools would be free to be poorly run, poorly managed, and even to go out of business in the middle of the school year (which actually happened in the Milwaukee choice program). Before anything approaching a free market educational system could be adopted, you'd have to "essplain" how you're going to prevent these things from happening (without messing up the free market model).This is how just about every other good and service in our society is provided (excluding, again, economic public goods and natural monopolies), and overall it works pretty well.I think we've disagreed on this before, but I think schools are pretty close to a natural monopoly.

The bottom line (and the thing I think Jeff is missing) is that this simply can't work unless you do it all out (and even then I'm not convinced it can work). Which means that for even a chance of it working, you'd have to almost completely dismantle the educational system as it currently exists. Which is something no sane person would want to do unless they were completely convinced that the current system is damaged beyond repair.

Unfortunately, given the conservative penchant for holding up the absolute worst examples as though they're typcial, they've done pretty good job of falsely convincing some people of exactly that. For examples of how poorly we're not doing, see Setting The Record Straight and What You Should Know About The War on America's Public Schools. (Although I have to say, with respect to the latter, that I'm no more happy with it when my side uses heavy-handed "war" rhetoric than when the other side does it.)

Jeff:The "that won't work in the real world" rejoinder I keep reading is not convincing.Except that the burden of proof isn't on those who want to maintain the status quo to prove that the change won't work; it's on those who want to change the status quo to prove that it will work. If the modest-to-nonexistent results shown by pilot programs in Milwaukee and Cleveland are what choice programs have to offer, it's going to be a very tough sell.What changes one's perspective on this issue is to have your child sit under teaching that you clearly think is completely false.Which is where "parenting" comes in. :) Seriously, by the time, say, evolution comes up, I'd hope your children are old enough, smart enough, and mature enough that you could, in your church or your own home, "teach the controversy" 'til the cows come home. And those who don't agree that there is a controversy don't have to have their kids listen to a sermon on an invented controversy.

Mind you, if the thing they were teaching that you believe false weren't widely accepted science, I'd be right with you in objecting to its teaching. But that's not what we're talking about here.there is little that is taught in Govt controlled schools that he would feel is offensive to his secular world and life view.Oh, I'm willing to bet that when Carter and Reagan get brought up in history class, I'd find plenty to object to! :) And if GWB gets his way, I'd have some pretty strong objections to what they teach constitutes "executive power" in social studies, too...Now, once ID begins to be taught in Govt controlled science classrooms, everything would of course, change.Of course it would. Because now, not only is my child being taught something that I believe is false, s/he's being taught something that the vast majority of scientists also believe is false.Which is why it is nice to have options like David is suggesting ... that ultimately gives choices in education for people who could not afford otherwise.And as I've said, I've got no objections to such options, as long as they're privately financed. There are plenty of megachurches (for example) with plenty of money who could privately establish just such a program. And any donations you gave to that program would be completely tax deductible.Choice is a good thing in a pluaralist society.I absolutely agree. Which is why I'm happy we have choice. It befuddles me that you continue to pretend that we don't.

David:I believe there are studies showing that the investment in a university education yields impressive returns over the course of a lifetime.Well, ROI is great, if you can afford to make the initial investment in the first place. Which, in the case of university education, many cannot. So the question becomes, why are we supposed to believe that elementary and secondary education will be any more affordable or accessible, when the evidence from the university system seems to contradict this?That isn't the fault of the market, however.Then who the hell does get the blame?The market price for better quality education might be too high for many families.Which is why I insist that you work out these problems in gory detail before I even think about buying into the idea of dismantling free universal public education so that we can have a pie-in-the-sky market-driven cost-based education system that large swaths of the population would be unable to afford.A significant portion of many university budgets goes to fund research. This means a university's marginal costs are going to differ significantly from a secondary school's cost structure.You're joking, right? Universities primarily fund their research not through tuition, but through these things called "grants." Given that you work at a university, you would think you'd have heard of this. So unless you have solid evidence to the contrary, I hardly think it's fair to hide behind research as an excuse concerning why education is so expensive. Never mind the fact that many of the small private schools -- often among the most expensive -- have no such research programs.Everyone would have to attend at least a certain amount of secondary schooling somewhere, by law. But there would be, I would argue, more choices and more efficient ways of supplying the demand.This points up another problem with a market-based system. If a fixed amount of education is mandatory, then the only way for there to truly be any "choice" is if the supply far exceeds the demand. If it didn't, then my only "choice" would be whatever's available. But supply exceeding demand generally leads to lower profit margins, which from a business perspective is a disincentive to entry. Further, as evidenced by the Wal-Marts of the world, quality tends to suffer badly as prices are driven down.

David:

First and foremost, mea culpa on the research funding. It's not particularly important to my argument anyway. Now, then:This kind of statement I don't understand. Is a book or CD you buy at Wal-Mart of a lower quality than the same book or CD purchased for $3 more at Barnes & Nobel?Which is true only for intellectual property like books, DVDs, CDs, etc. And these generally (and not coincidentally) aren't all that much less expensive than at other locations (excepting, perhaps, overpriced mall stores). But turn the discussion to things like clothing and lawn mowers and CD players, etc., and the quality is often subpar at a discount store.Why is it better for consumers to pay more for the same goods?It isn't inherently better. Although sometimes the true "cost" of those low prices is obscured from the consumer. We're now way the hell off-topic, but it's not exactly a secret that Wal-Mart exerts tremendous pressure on its suppliers to move production overseas, where wages are tiny, labor restrictions are insufficient and unenforced, and environmental regulation is virtually nonexistent.

So while there's nothing inherently moral about paying more for the same product, there is a moral issue with giving business to a company that is rapidly driving a race to the bottom.You seem to think markets are inherently bad.Not at all. Markets, when properly regulated, are very, very good. I just have a much different view of "properly regulated" than you do. I consider regulating things like environmental concerns, decent pay, and working conditions to be prudent, and I think it's supremely unethical to offshore just to avoid such regulations. (And make no mistake, that's a big part of what "free trade" agreements -- including those passed under Clinton -- are all about.)

Markets by themselves cannot and will not correct for these types of things, which is why regulation of them is mandatory. I'm not out to destroy anyone's profit motivation, as you seem to think I am. But I don't think it's asking too much that we require people to make their profit within certain confines that protect health, safety, quality of living, etc.

Putting it another way, there are some things that markets are good at, and others that markets are very bad at. One of the things they're bad at is guaranteeing equal access, protecting against malfeasance and abuse, etc. All of these things are exceptionally important with education.

Now it's entirely possible we're talking past one another. I've been operating under the assumption that you're a "free market" kind of guy, the kind who opposes most kinds of regulation. Many of your arguments have seemed consistent with this. But if you're not that guy, then maybe we need to discuss your economic philosophy, so that I have a clearer picture.Why is there "blame" at all? You tell me, you're the one who introduced fault. :)

So what percentage of a university's budget would you say is tied up by research? How much should we expect elementary and secondary education to cost, since there is no research aspect? 50%? 25%? Even that last still puts a typical student's education cost at over $3,000 per year (based on our local public university's tuition of $13,000), and I'm betting that's much lower than what a market will actually allow.

See, we can boil this right down to two problems, from where I sit:

1. You have yet to establish that the current public school system is hopelessly flawed, such that a fundamental restructuring is needed.

2. You have yet to demonstrate that a "school choice" system will deliver substantially improved results. You've had plenty of excuses as to why such results haven't been seen, but no actual evidence.

The other thing is, we know free public education can work when properly implemented. How do we know this? Because until fairly recently, it's worked exceptionally well here. And almost invariably, when you hear about those foreign students kicking our ass, they're coming from countries where they also have public schools. If they're managing to do a better job without scrapping the whole mess and cranking out privately run McSchools, then why can't we?

I guess all this is part of why I'm not an accountant. I can't make heads or tails of any of it.

Well, if you can make heads or tails of the CUNY budget, you probably belong in jail.
:-)

Wow, that'll teach me to miss a day! The increases in university enrollment are, I believe, largely attributable to increases in the amount of money available to a great many families. That's fine, I guess, for an optional activity such as university (though it deprives us of many people with the ability to do well, but not the finances). But such a thing is simply not acceptable for primary and secondary education, which is in part defined by what people *need* to know, not what it's good for *someone* to know.

I was going to comment belatedly on this thread, but I see that tgirsch has admirably represented my point of view.