Friday, June 2: Behold the power of the blogosphere!
Update (2:37 p.m.): I read yesterday about a separatist government school for hispanics called Academia Semillas del Pueblo. A show called McIntyre in the Morning is investigating the school, which is supported by racialist organizations like La Raza. After a reporter’s interview with the principal, someone tried to run him down.
(MM has more on this. So do Ed Driscoll, Betsy Newmark, who links to a related article by Wendy McElroy [a libertarian?] ), and Wizbang.
Private race- or ethnicity-based schools, no problem. Government-sanctioned and supported race- or ethnicity-based schools, BIG PROBLEM. History lesson (although the court’s reasoning stunk).
United Nations-approved compulsory education? Sounds farfetched, eh? At the rate we’re going, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit. Higher education, whatever. General education, never.
If our Supreme Court, the highest court in the United States, is citing foreign law, what’s to prevent foreigners from having a say in our K-12 public education system? The foreign government of Mexico already dictates our immigration policy…
Blogger Henry Cate interviews black homeschooler Jennifer James.
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When it comes to education, I’m a libertarian.
In fact, I once interviewed for an education policy analyst position at the Cato Institute. We talked about the need for a free market approach to education, the repugnance of government monopoly, etc., and everything was going so well. Then the interviewer asked my opinion on “legislating” morality, i.e., homosexuality. Though I tried to restrain myself, the social conservatism came gushing out.
What a mess that was. By the way, I didn’t get the job. 
Milton Friedman
Anyway, back to the topic. Ideally, government should stay out of the education “business,” especially the federal government. Well-known economist and libertarian Milton Friedman sums up the libertarian position in The Role of Government in Education:
The role assigned to government in any particular field depends, of course, on the principles accepted for the organization of society in general. In what follows, I shall assume a society that takes freedom of the individual, or more realistically the family, as its ultimate objective, and seeks to further this objective by relying primarily on voluntary exchange among individuals for the organization of economic activity. In such a free private enterprise exchange economy, government’s primary role is to preserve the rules of the game by enforcing contracts, preventing coercion, and keeping markets free. Beyond this, there are only three major grounds on which government intervention is to be justified.
One of the grounds for justification for government’s interference intervention in the free market is what Friedman calls a “neighborhood effect”:
A stable and democratic society is impossible without widespread acceptance of some common set of values and without a minimum degree of literacy and knowledge on the part of most citizens. Education contributes to both. In consequence, the gain from the education of a child accrues not only to the child or to his parents but to other members of the society; the education of my child contributes to other people’s welfare by promoting a stable and democratic society. Yet it is not feasible to identify the particular individuals (or families) benefited or the money value of the benefit and so to charge for the services rendered. There is therefore a significant “neighborhood effect.”
In other words, libertarians believe that compulsory, government-financed education can be justified by the common societal benefit of general education. I think most conservatives and liberals would agree.
We divide on the “nationalization” of education; that is, how involved the government should be in education. This is where I’m libertarian and why I no longer support George Bush’s No Child Left Behind law. To require a uniform standard of academic achievement and teacher qualifications across the country is a noble but unrealistic idea. Some schools have more low achieving students than others. Highly-qualified teachers may be attracted to high-quality schools, and no amount of bonus or benefits will lure them to low quality schools, especially in bad neighborhoods. No wonder teachers cheat (and aren’t qualified themselves) and help out students on standardized tests. They know the students have no chance of meeting the minimum required scores. If the schools fails, they face consequences.
The liberal tendency is to throw more money at the problem rather than approach it from a different angle. A modest approach would be more school vouchers for low-income children. An ambitious and radical approach would be the libertarian way.
Friedman says it is taken for granted that because government subsidizes education, government should be directly involved with the administration of schools. This doesn’t necessarily follow. If heavy government involvement stems from a paternalistic concern about educating children of all classes and abilities, it must be balanced with individual freedom in a democratic society. Friedman explains how both could be accomplished:
Governments could require a minimum level of education which they could finance by giving parents vouchers redeemable for a specified maximum sum per child per year if spent on “approved” educational services. Parents would then be free to spend this sum and any additional sum on purchasing educational services from an “approved” institution of their own choice. The educational services could be rendered by private enterprises operated for profit, or by non-profit institutions of various kinds. The role of the government would be limited to assuring that the schools met certain minimum standards such as the inclusion of a minimum common content in their programs, much as it now inspects restaurants to assure that they maintain minimum sanitary standards.
As cited earlier, libertarians believe a stable and democratic society requires acceptance of a common set of values. With government monopolizing education, however, a “common set of values” becomes harder to define, and individuals have less freedom in this area. There is also less competition between schools and lower incentives for schools to improve. So parents send their kids to private and parochial schools, which tends to exacerbate “elitism” and class distinctions, which in turn sends liberals into a tizzy (even though they send their kids to private schools).
Friedman argues that these distinctions and stratifications would be reduced if government got out of the way and allowed parents to send their kids to government schools of their choice. All the government would do is assure that schools met certain minimum standards. If parents are displeased with their child’s present school, they can withdraw the child and place him in a different school. As it stands now, says Friedman, if parents want to change schools, they typically have to change neighborhoods or go through a cumbersome bureaucratic and political process to eliminate unacceptable practices.
Friedman discusses a lot of things, including government’s role in vocational education. I picked out the issue I wanted to emphasize, so I encourage you to read the entire, long essay.
Seattle Public Schools: Symptom of the Disease
Incidentally, I intended to focus on an op-ed written by a libertarian about Seattle Public Schools called Planning ahead is considered racist?. But I got carried away blogging about what exactly the libertarian position on education was.
Last week I read that the school district posted on its web site a definition or statement about racism that implied only whites could be racist. News Busters has the details. I thought about it again when I read Cato Institute’s Andrew J. Coulson’s piece.
[Note: Coulson drops in for a visit. Make him feel welcome. 
]
It seems the school district implied, on its web site, that long-term planning is a “white” value and, therefore, racist. Don’t ask me why they did it. My answer wouldn’t be appropriate for mixed company.
[Seattle removed the dumb statements, but Coulson links to the Google cache copy from Cato's blog. Seattle replaced the previous drivel with new drivel.]
Coulson mentions both idiotic statements but focuses on the larger issue: the lack of school choice allows government schools to push ill-informed, illiterate, and politically-bent ideology on parents, whose complaints don’t really matter. He writes:
Under such a choice-based system, those wanting to promote their own cultural and political philosophies could hang out a shingle and offer their services to any and all interested families. But they would lack the power, used and abused in Seattle, to impose their ideologies.
Race!
I bet you thought I wouldn’t mention race, right? Wrong. I believe the libertarian/school choice/less government involvement approach would be particularly beneficial to black students. Nursed on government-as-savior pabulum, blacks typically oppose school choice as something foreign. Yes, it requires a lot of parental involvement and responsibility in the child’s education, but living in a free society requires it.
With the expansion of government in every part of our lives from cradle to grave, many people have forgotten what individual responsibility looks and feels like. Liberals don’t want you to know, and conservatives used to insist that you know. But liberals and conservatives [A commenter corrects the record; yes, I meant the political parties.] Democrats and Republicans are increasingly indistinguishable when it comes to Big Government.
Sources:
- Individualism is Racist?
- On the Role of Government in Education (Douglas Dewey)
- Milton & Rose D. Friedman Foundation
- I met former education policy analyst Casey Lartigue after I cited his Cato study in this article. Read his archived commentary and studies.
- See Cato’s education policy section.
- Libertarian Party on Education
- As so many other things, this won’t work, either.
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Lashawn,
Where we disagree is that the free market is not suited for social programs, and education is at its heart a social program. Moreover, I think that you may be trading indoctronation by one sector — government — for another — corporations — who would equally be interested in pushing its agenda.
I can tell you didn’t read Friedman’s essay. He proposed a balanced approach. I briefly cite his idea, but it would be more helpful to read the whole thing.
The whole libertarian thing confuses me and makes my brain itch.
There must be a core set of values in any attempt at education and that core is the devil’s playground.
Once upon a time, the school house was ruled by a quirky dictator. Kids were told to behave and they learned the terrible swift consequences if they did not.
Today, everything is touchy-feely and negotiable. “Heather Has Two Mommies” seems like a perfectly sane primer to many. Others proclaim that the book intrudes upon the sanctity of the values set being inculcated by the family.
There will never be enough schools for children to move to in search of their educational Valhalla.
The issue, in my mind, is how can we return to a common sense school house? Home schooling is one answer. My neighbor, the atheist, has sent her kids to a Catholic school. Her opinion? Even if they get “sucked in” it isn’t as bad as the cr*p they have to put up with in the public schools.
The government has to be involved in the accreditation process in the same way it regulates day care and nursing homes. We can’t possibly let the Crips and the Bloods open up schools. But when you move more toward the mainstream, the whole concept becomes a war zone.
In the end, I support vouchers that can be used at “approved” schools. I shudder to think of the standards that will be mangled in determining whether a school is “approved” or not.
I have read much by Friedman on this topic and I do not see how his views can be implemented without the assistance of a “benevolent dictator.” It is not the “invisible hand” on the throttle of the capitalist economy that is going to fulfill the role of education overseer.
Short of scrapping the whole system and starting over, Friedman’s proposal sounds good enough.
“Corporate indoctrination” is laughable as well. Gee, aren’t they (good and bad companies) already sending us a constant barrage of advertising? And what do we do? We choose! Where we want to shop, what we want to buy –we choose. Our kids’ education is more important than any of the junk we buy, yet we’re stuck with whatever public school is closest. If the teachers are horrid or the school grounds unkempt, we can’t just leave for a different school without buying a new home, filing papers for a school official to decide whether to allow us to transfer, or paying tuition at a private school. Wow, what a boon for low-income families! Hey, if they want a better school, all they have to do is fork over $$$$ for a new house or $$ for a private school!! I don’t see what’s so terrible about being able to easily pick and attend the school that suits your needs.
And the other thing about “corporate indoctrination” — If we don’t want to hear it/see it, we change stations or shut it off. Meanwhile, it’s nearly impossible to shut down a crappy school, but companies with no customers close their own doors.
Lashawn, that thing is LOOONNNGGG. Don’t you realize that this is a soundbite society, lol.
I still don’t believe that a free market cures much as applied to education. Today we have a free market, such that you may pay to have your child educated. If you can’t afford such, we offer free education. Being a product of said free education (and the child of free educators, if I may coin a term) I cannot say that said education was inferior, and my personal pride won’t let me anyway.
That said, there are inefficencies that could be addressed. But such is the case for all government programs.
Great post. Our dismal schools don’t teach economics so we hear dumb statements from politicians like “How will we pay for the tax cuts?†We don’t teach history so we get “This is the most mismanaged war in American history!â€
LaShawn – I just read this and it made me so angry, I think my eyes crossed for a full minute!
http://www.kabc.com/mcintyre/goout.asp?u=http://www.tcla.gseis.ucla.edu/equalterms/dialogue/2/aguilar.html
La Shawn said,
Ideally, government should stay out of the education “business,†especially the federal government.
How about global education run by the UN? Seems far fetched doesn’t it. But it’s happening. Check out my post today and read how Qatar (a Muslim Country) is bringing in US PUBLIC Universities. Very enlightening. Especially since the students pay their tuition to the Qatar Foundation which then pays an undisclosed sum to the University. Remember, this is a PUBLIC university.
They are also working with UNESCO to build a global curriculum. All with the help of the RAND Corporation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Here’s the link
http://spunkyhomeschool.blogspot.com/2006/06/welcome-to-education-city.html
So when we say that government should stay out of education its no longer so cut and dry. Which government? As Thomas Friedman said so well in the title of his book, “The World Is Flat.” So while I might agree with some of Mr. Friedman’s analysis; which nation’s standards become the “international standard” is becoming more and more the issue. Here’s a quote from the Gates / UNESCO agreement signed in 2004
Web-based communities of practice including content development and worldwide curricula reflecting UNESCO values.
I don’t want the UN setting the standards for our education and values. No thanks! Sadly, educators and policy makers are increasingly being wooed in that direction. Remember the big Gates / Oprah roll out. The media hype surrounding that was not coincidental. As my dear dad loves to say, “Follow the money”. And when Qatar, Gates, and the UN are involved in setting the values in education, I’m heading 180 degrees in the opposite direction – homeschooling.
Based on your update, apparently one of the many American values this separatist school doesn’t accept is freedom of the press!
My late aunt once remarked, upon the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II, that she felt she had lived too long.
I’m starting to see what she meant! This world is INSANE!
Update on that “seperatist” school:
http://cbs2.com/topstories/local_story_152141129.html
Typical liberal mentality…we like all views as long as they agree with us…UGH
OOOPS!!
LOL
Looking at the same updates
Lashawn,
20 years ago in another life, I introduced a bill in the NC house for vouchers. The Democrats went nuts. Then I pointed out that NC already has a voucher plan in place for NC students that go to private colleges, a $900 a semester payment to the parents. So rich college students get vouchers, but poor kids don’t, so figure. Ah, the mind of the Liberal it’s a funny to watch’em wiggle. Kemp
LaShawn,
I support school choice/vouchers, provided the poor state of public education and teacher quality is addressed. I think the bigger issue in the public education sector is the political clout of teacher’s unions. They are particularly strong in cities, where minority children are disproportionately educated. Public education can work provided more is done to hold teachers accountable. As a product of the NYC public school system I’ve witnessed the danger of having teachers in the classrom that essentially give up on certain groups of students. The problem is because these teachers have the equivalent of tenure, they can get away with it. I’d like to see more merit-based pay and higher standards for tenure.
A great book to read is No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Education by Stephen Thernstrom.
La Shawn,
Next time you have a bout of social conservatism when asked about morality here is a response that will tell them truthfully what they want to hear and read to the end because you might think its headed in the wrong direction at first:
How do you feel about morality? Would you support legislation that would impose morality on others?
Answer: No, I do not support legislating morality, it is not an activity I can be engaged in. I deal in practical results, and I do not believe in imposing my beliefs upon others. END answer.
Here is the trick: Legislating morality is impossible. Just can’t be done. It isn’t just a matter of being a bad idea, it simply isn’t possible. When we pass laws or support the passing of law based on moral principles, we aren’t legislating morality. We are encoding into the law conditions of behavior, not thought. Morality is about self governance and legislation is about external governance. Obedience to the law doesn’t make one moral, it is compliance to avoid punishment. Many people who obey the law do not necessarily believe in them, for example Walter Williams on smoking or seatbelt usage. Those who wear seat belts because it serves society can be said to be moral, but wearing them does not make one moral except to the extent they do so because they at least honor the rule of law. But not all people make it that far. But the law doesn’t care what they think about it. The law says such and so and if you don’t obey it, such and so will be the consequence. The law doesn’t care whether you are good or evil, only that you comply.
I came upon this idea as a result of a former California Lieutenant Governor giving a speech about socially conservative values who said about legislating morality: “we legislate nothing else” which sounded good to me at the time, but which I got to thinking about later when I realized that morality was my self governance in a social world and it was incapable of being forced by government. The most they could do was have me comply or do whatever they do for not complying. I remain an enemy of legalized abortion regardless of what the Supreme Court had to say about it. I comply with the law, but certainly not because I believe it is a moral compass.
The other issue is the answer above is the minimum needed to deal with the question, the explanation is none of their business. You answer truthfully, but you don’t have to explain yourself, something that is very dangerous in these politically correct times.
I note that the Cato Institute is libertarian in nature and wants people to enjoy the ultimate in individual liberty at the expense of social benefit. On their website right now is an article on the evils of a federal constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman, something very valuable to society and for the proper development of children raised in a traditional family. I find it odd because the whole point of alternative marriage is so a spouse can get benefits or other privileges of marriage, and they are depending on the governments laws to do it. Those laws are ok, but that one isn’t? If they are so liberated as to not need government intervention, why are they so happy when government mandates particular privileges for married folks? If they want alternative marriage, and say there is no reason society should object, they have to understand that they have no right to expect society to grant them anything in return. I find particular relationships immoral, and I shouldn’t have to provide support for it.
Jeff Mitchell
blacks typically oppose school choice as something foreign
Every poll that I have seen shows 60% of blacks supporting school choice.
I don’t support school vouchers for the reasons mentioned in the link below. The article entitled “The Great Voucher Fraud” shows how much a school voucher system is contrary to the Libertarian ideology.
http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0412d.asp
Answering a poll question and electing politicians who support school choice are two different things, Shade. Blacks tend not to elect politicians who advocate school choice. Another nitpicking day, is it?
One of the things that people always forget when they discuss the private/public dichotomy in education and childcare is that educational services are services just like anything else, and if you tax people to provide them instead of having those people pay directly to the service providers, you are not only robbing the taxed but ALSO the service providers who don’t fit into the highly regulated government model. This is about to happen in California with universal preschool for example – not only will some people be taxed, but the livelihood of home daycare providers is going to be taken away from them.
Several points regarding your “libertarian perspective” on education:
(1) I believe that you have read much too much into the passing phrase “a common set of values.” By this Friedman was unlikely to have in mind the sorts of things that conservatives mean by “values” – e.g., sexual orientation, a specific profession of faith, “American culture,” etc. Rather, he probably just had in mind things like settling disputes over public policy at the voting booth rather than with machine guns and militias.
(2) Friedman’s view on education is at the extreme conservative wing of libertarianism. [Not true of all his views, but most definitely true of this view.] Most libertarians have long ago come to the realization that with vouchers come the same sort of controls over the content of education that exist with direct government provision of education. Indeed, the situation may be even worse with vouchers, since with vouchers you effectively co-opt many of the formerly private schools who previously had their own agendas.
(3) Most libertarians fall into one of two camps: (a) Outright abolition of the government schools with private charities picking up the bill [or, better, part of the bill] for those who can’t afford to pay for their own children’s education. and (b) The J.S. Mill approach of simply requiring parents to see that their children meet basic standards of literacy, math, etc. by a certain age upon penalty of fines if they don’t.
If anyone would like a reading list I’d be happy to supply it, although this is a good initial primer comprised of some basic articles: http://www.fff.org/issues/education.asp
Oh, one other thing. The basic economics expressed in the snipped you quoted from Friedman are just simply dead wrong. There are many subsequent academic articles demonstrating that schooling produces virtually no externalities [see, e.g., the several monographs of E.G. West and his students http://www.ncl.ac.uk/egwest/ http://www.iea.org.uk/record.jsp?type=publication&ID=223 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/086597134X/102-0491740-6147350?v=glance&n=283155.
For a basic treatment of why not everything is an externality [despite what some of us were taught in high school and undergraduate school] see the nontechnical and classical article by Nobel Prize winner and former Chicago law professor/economist Ronald Coase entitled “The Problem of Social Costs” http://www.sfu.ca/~allen/CoaseJLE1960.pdf
First, I understood exactly what Friedman meant by “a common set of values,” and nothing in my post indicates otherwise. I guess you’re reading my politically ideology and Christian faith into it. Second, as I am not a libertarian and quite unfamiliar with the various “liberal” and “conservative” libertarian views on education, I read Friedman’s essay and took my best shot. This is not a treatise or scholarly paper; it’s a blog post. I expected libertarians and those familiar with their views to fill in the details and correct erroneous assumptions.
I’m sure my regular readers will appreciate the links.
#15 Shade links to a provocative statement from the Future of Freedom Foundation which lays out a prosaic argument that vouchers will only serve to dull the cutting edge excellence of many private schools.
Vouchers enable many parents to become players in the game of education choice. Some private schools will sink to mediocrity because of the new-found wealth of voucher toting students. But some schools will sharpen their mission and other, new schools will pop up.
There is a market place out there. Right now, if you have the bucks, you can make choices. Vouchers will increase the competition. Not all consumers are sharp. Some will opt for fad education, others will go for comfort education and others for the least disruptive day care.
Many children will still be dumbed down, but only because the parents are too diverted or too dumb to care.
I don’t believe that liberals & conservatives are indistinguishable, I believe that Democrats & Republicans are becoming indistinguishable. Too many Republicans are not true conservatives.
Correct! That’s what I meant to express. – Admin
#20 Craig J. Bolton adequately exposes why libertarians continually come up with spokesmen who are loonier than Howard Dean.
It is a great mistake to enter into discussions of governance without a careful reading of Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels.” Libertarians always take the role of framing the issue: they exercise the providence of what is open to government and what is not. It may seem to be good duty to play God, but amateurs throwing the thunderbolts of the Deity only end up creating chaos. That is why it is important to carefully read “The Lord of the Flies” as well.
Oh, absolutely … one of the first things I learned from the Libertarians is that one obvious solution to the violation of the separation of Church and State caused by prayer in schools is to have a separation of EDUCATION and State …
If Heliotrope gets to mention Gulliver’s Travels, I get to mention one of the early indoctrinations into Libertarian thought disguised as science fiction:
“The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” By Robert Heinlein.
Hi La Shawn. Saw your mention of Friedman’s “Role of Government in Education” and thought you might like to know that the Cato Institute is publishing a book this fall revisiting that essay. The contributing authors look at how well Friedman’s analysis has held up to the evidence of the past fifty years, and how relevant it is for the 21st century. I’d be happy to put you on the reviewers list if you’d like to write a review when it comes out.
Cheers,
Andrew
Please do! Thanks for stopping by, Andrew. Great op-ed in the Post-Intelligencer. You were mentioned in a PI story today:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/272550_race02.html
La Shawn wrote:
Blacks tend not to elect politicians who advocate school choice.
Blacks in Washington would re-elect Anthony Williams I’m sure. Joseph Lieberman would probably get most of the black votes in a run against a Republican candidate. Both support school vouchers. The point is that those blacks who will not vote Republican will not do so because of other issues besides school vouchers.
Here is a quote from Joseph Phillips:
http://forum.josephcphillips.com/viewtopic.php?p=5839&highlight=#5839
“As for how blacks vote…once again you are caught up in how people vote — specifically how they vote for presidential candidates. For some reason you ignore that when black people have had an opportunity to vote on things like school vouchers and gay marriage, even affirmative action they do not vote the democratic line.”
How did I get to this?……Shade made me say it: The Democrats have a hold on the “plantation mentality.”
There is a huge group out there that is afraid to cut their “affirmative action” security blanket or their “victim status” or their “slave ship hi-jack” past to go bare-knuckles with the present and achieve on their own without “bonus points”.
It is really chicken-sh*t to sit in the corner and gnaw on the bones tossed by the nanny party.
Taking responsibility and thinking independently is often too large a burden for the permanently enslaved.
Neither political party is the pathway to eternal grace; but hanging on to the political party that is the demagogue’s playground is to emulate “step’an’fetchit.”.
Well, the Baltimore Sun has an interesting (actuallyl shocking) story–
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.ucla04jun04,0,1379906.story
“This fall 4,852 freshmen are expected to enroll at the University of California, Los Angeles, but only 96, or 2 percent, are black – the lowest figure in decades and a growing concern on the campus.”
Of these, 20 are recruited athletes (and hence not admitted for their academic credentials) meaning only 76 made the grade for admission on scholarship (which comes as a shock to me, at any rate.)
But that must be the biggest rebuke to black educators in decades. (I remember when black educators in Calif. were demandingebonics.)
Of course, article considers the usual “explanations” (black students come from lower-income schools which don’t adqueately prepare them, etc.)
But that doesn’t seem to account for the fact that parochial schools (which are woefully underfunded and which often use outdated books and facilities) excel in academics.
It’s called discipline and self-respect! Both are taught in parochial schools. I know. I survived 11 years of them!
Just started Joseph Phillips’ book – it is WONDERFUL! Nearly overstayed my lunch hour today, it’s that engrossing.
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