Education: The Next 50 Years
Friedman, Milton
"Education" ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION is, on one level, an industry like all others with schools producing a service that is consumed by the nation's children. On another level, elementary and...
...Such shaky foundations cannot indefinitely sup-port a system that is so clearly defective, that is in-consistent with the self-image of the Democratic Party, and that is against the self-interest of most teachers in government schools...
...In particular, the kind of voucher programs that have been enacted so far will not...
...They are what I have called charity vouchers, not educational vouchers...
...In most industries, consumers are free to buy the product from anyone who offers it for sale, at a price mutually agreed on...
...the educational performance of the voucher schools has been better than of the government schools from which the voucher students came...
...Functional literacy is very likely lower than it was a century ago...
...It is as if when automobiles or television were in their infancy, the government had prohibited charging more than a very low price...
...They bought the initial cars and TVs at high prices and thereby supported production while the cost was being brought down, until what started out as a luxury good for the rich be-came a necessity for the poor...
...Top-down organization works no better in the United States than it did in the Soviet Union or East Germany...
...Change the organization of elementary and secondary schooling from top-down to bottom-up...
...20 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR NOVEMBER 2005...
...Under the present system, not much more than half of the money spent on government schools goes to teachers in the class-room...
...Government ownership and operation of schools alters fundamentally the way the industry is organized...
...Similarly, teachers in government schools, especially the more competent ones, would be among the major beneficiaries of a transition to an educational system dominated by competition and choice...
...In elementary and secondary education, government decides what is to be produced and who is to consume its products, generally assigning students to schools by their residence...
...The teachers' unions have used their large income (estimated at more than $1.5 billion that's billion not million) and large membership to gain a major role in the Democratic Party...
...On another level, elementary and secondary education is unique, an industry on which the whole of society rests...
...Pressure is building behind each of the 50 dams erected by the special interests...
...Parents of more than 10 percent of all students, who go to private schools or are schooled at home, have adopted this final recourse...
...That is where vouchers come in...
...That is why government plays such a major role in schooling...
...The problem is how to get from here to there...
...One function played by the rich is to NOVEMBER 2005 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 19 EDUCATION: THE NEXT 50 YEARS finance innovation...
...As I wrote in 1955, "A stable and democratic society is impossible without a minimum degree of literacy and knowledge on the part of most citizens and without widespread acceptance of some common set of values...
...They have served their limited purpose well...
...The families that received them have benefited...
...They offer a means for a gradual transition from top-down to bottom-up...
...r 1 HE PRESCRIPTION IS CLEAR...
...The Democratic Party professes, in the words of Senator Edward Kennedy, "to give voice to the voiceless...
...The reason, I believe, is that centralization, bureaucratization, and unionization have enabled teachers' union leaders and educational administrators to gain effective control of government elementary and secondary schools...
...In sharp contrast to other major industries, there has been little, no, or even negative improvement in the product...
...And we spend more per student, in real dollars corrected for inflation, than we ever have before and more than any other country does now...
...As in other industries, such a competitive free market would lead to improvements in quality and reductions in cost...
...Most major public policy revolutions come only after a lengthy build-up of support...
...There has been some progress toward charity vouchers but almost none toward educational vouchers...
...It compels attendance in school...
...I have been saying this for some years now, and so far, I have been wrong...
...Almost all of them have been limited, directly or indirectly, to low-income families and some have not permitted parents to add on to the voucher, thereby limiting the tuition that can be charged...
...So far, they have been extremely successful in blocking any significant change in the structure of elementary and secondary education in the United States...
...However, not just any voucher program will do...
...An educational voucher of reasonable size, though less than the current government spending per student, that was available to all students regard-less of income or race or religion, and that did not prohibit add-ons or impose detailed regulations on start-up service providers, would end up helping the poor more than a charity voucher—not instantly, but OTH THESE PILLARS OF POWER rest on shaky ground...
...Government owns and operates most of the schools...
...Equally important, teaching conditions are more attractive in private schools, as judged by the higher turnover in government schools despite higher average pay...
...The union leaders and education-al administrators rightly regard extended parental choice through vouchers and tax-funded scholarships as the major threat to their monopolistic control...
...They have been responsible for truly remarkable economic growth, improvements in products, and increased efficiency in production...
...But the "voiceless," among whom are surely the residents of low-income areas in big cities, are clearly the main victims of the present schooling system and would be major beneficiaries of a more competitive educational system...
...Taxpayers pay the bulk of the costs of schooling...
...They have made opposition to vouchers a key plank in the par- Milton Friedman, chairman of the Milton and Rose ty's mantra...
...nomics...
...Producers would be free to enter or leave the industry and would compete to attract students...
...Convert to a system in which parents choose the schools their children attend—or, more broadly, the educational services their children receive, whether in a brick and mortar school or on DVDs or over the Internet, or whatever alternative the ingenuity of man can conceive...
...But when the break comes, what had been politically impossible quickly becomes politically inevitable...
...VEN IF SUCH VOUCHERS were much more widespread than they are now, they could not .4 provide the kind of market needed to stimulate innovative experimentation...
...And the educational performance of those government schools has improved...
...In the process, consumers determine how much is produced and by whom and BY MILTON FRIEDMAN 18 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR NOVEMBER 2005 producers have an incentive to satisfy their customers...
...Public support for educational vouchers is growing...
...The parents would pay for educational services with what-ever subsidy they receive from the government plus whatever sum they want to add out of their own re-sources...
...Children are taught the way they have been for centuries...
...The rest goes to administrators, advisers, consultants, and the whole paraphernalia of non-teaching bureaucrats...
...1 LEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION iS, on one level, an industry like all others with schools producing a service that is consumed by the nation's children...
...More and more states are considering proposals for vouchers or tax-funded scholarships...
...Just as the breakup of the Ma Bell monopoly led to a revolution in communications, a breakup of the school monopoly would lead to a revolution in schooling...
...Teacher union delegates have been a significant fraction of all delegates to Democratic political conventions...
...In short, this industry is organized from the top down...
...The unions have also succeeded in per- D. Friedman Foundation, is a senior research fellow at suading most teachers that it is in their self-interest the Hoover Institution and a Nobel Laureate in ecoto retain the current dysfunctional system...
...The teachers' unions have used their large income (estimated at more than $1.5 billion—that's billion not million) and large membership to gain a major role in the Democratic Party...
...after a brief period as competition did its work...
...The only recourse for dissatisfied parents is through political channels, changing their residence or forswearing the government subsidy and paying for their children's schooling twice, once in taxes and once in tuition...
...These competitive private industries are organized from the bottom up...
...Performance differs as much as organization...
...However, I am not discouraged...
...So it will be with the goal of a competitive free market education system compatible with our basic values...
...Every poll shows them to be strongly in favor of vouchers, yet their political leaders hew to the party line rather than giving voice to the educational needs of the voiceless...
...In private schools, the bulk of the spending ends up in the classroom...
Vol. 38 • November 2005 • No. 9
