Here's a good question for you: Why have public schools at all?
OK, cue the marching music. We need public schools because blah blah blah
and yada yada yada. We could say blah is common culture and yada is the
government's interest in promoting the general welfare. Or that children are
the future. And a mind is a terrible thing to waste. Because we can't leave
any child behind.
The problem with all these bromides is that they leave out the simple fact
that one of the surest ways to leave a kid "behind" is to hand him over to
the government. Americans want universal education, just as they want
universally safe food. But nobody believes that the government should run
nearly all of the restaurants, farms and supermarkets. Why should it run the
vast majority of the schools - particularly when it gets terrible results?
Consider Washington, home of the nation's most devoted government-lovers
and, ironically, the city with arguably the worst public schools in the
country. Out of the 100 largest school districts, according to the
Washington Post, D.C. ranks third in spending for each pupil ($12,979) but
last in spending on instruction. Fifty-six cents out of every dollar go to
administrators who, it's no secret, do a miserable job administrating, even
though D.C. schools have been in a state of "reform" for nearly 40 years.
In a blistering series, the Post has documented how badly the bureaucrats
have run public education. More than half of the District of Columbia's
teenage kids spend their days in "persistently dangerous" schools, with an
average of nine violent incidents a day in a system with 135 schools.
"Principals reporting dangerous conditions or urgently needed repairs in
their buildings wait, on average, 379 days ... for the problems to be
fixed," according to the Post. But hey, at least the kids are getting a
lousy education. A mere 19 schools managed to get "proficient" scores or
better for a majority of students on the district's Comprehensive Assessment
Test.
A standard response to such criticisms is to say we don't spend enough on
public education. But if money were the solution, wouldn't the district,
which spends nearly $13,000 on every kid, rank near the top? If you think
more money will fix the schools, make your checks out to "cash" and send
them to me.
Private, parochial and charter schools get better results. Parents know
this. Applications for vouchers in the district dwarf the available supply,
and home schooling has exploded.
As for schools teaching kids about the common culture and all that, as a
conservative I couldn't agree more. But is there evidence that public
schools are better at it? The results of the 2006 National Assessment of
Educational Progress history and civics exams showed that two-thirds of U.S.
high school seniors couldn't identify the significance of a photo of a
theater with a sign reading "Colored Entrance." And keep in mind, political
correctness pretty much guarantees that Jim Crow and the civil rights
movement are included in syllabi. Imagine how few kids can intelligently
discuss Manifest Destiny or free silver.
Right now, there's a renewed debate about providing "universal" health
insurance. For some liberals, this simply means replicating the public
school model for health care. (Stop laughing.) But for others, this means
mandating that everyone have health insurance - just as we mandate that all
drivers have car insurance - and then throwing tax dollars at poorer folks
to make sure no one falls through the cracks.
There's a consensus in America that every child should get an education, but
as David Gelernter noted recently in the Weekly Standard, there's no such
consensus that public schools need to do the educating.
Really, what would be so terrible about government mandating that every kid
has to go to school, and providing subsidies and oversight when necessary,
but then getting out of the way?
Milton Friedman noted long ago that the government is bad at providing
services - that's why he wanted public schools to be called "government
schools" - but that it's good at writing checks. So why not cut checks to
people so they can send their kids to school?
What about the good public schools? Well, the reason good public schools are
good has nothing to do with government's special expertise and everything to
do with the fact that parents care enough to ensure their kids get a good
education. That wouldn't change if the government got out of the school
business. What would change is that fewer kids would get left behind. |