How do you think a system of private education would organize itself?
Would private schools that cater to middle income earners spring up for example? Not every private school will have Eton level fees obviously, but to what extent would private schools cater for people of differing SES?
Would family based education experience an upsurge? By this I mean methods that are commonly referred to as ‘homeschooling’ and so on.
What age range would schools concentrate on, would there be similar arbitrary divisions between concepts like ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ school?
How about universities, would they still be the hotbeds of research they are today - Or would their role be subsumed by businesses?
I realize most of this is educated guesswork, but I’d be curious to hear what formulations people come up with.
I went to a public high school, and I got a good education for the most part. The mathematics and science courses were good, but not the comprehensive reading/writing/history. The latter I had to study myself.
A few friends of mine went to private high schools. I wouldn’t consider them as being taught in a better manner than in which I was taught, but they were taught differently. My teachers always had to be careful of what they were going to say for fear that students would get mad and sue them. The private schools were much more open to controversial ideas. For example, both schools study racism in some type of form. While we got stuck watching old black-and-white (no pun intended) videos, they watched American History X. And from what I hear, they had much longer, in-depth discussions than we did because no one in our class paid attention to boring videos.
I don’t think they’d cater to business, though. There can still be non-profit schools that are private. I really don’t think anything different would happen from what happens now. If they stopped public funding of schools today, the more wealthy families would go to the nicer schools, but that only gives people a reason to work harder and hope their own children can go to those schools one day.
I think schools would transform radically. I don’t know what they would look like, or who they would service, but you can already see the rise of the autodidact in the internet age.
My friends have children who can operate complex websites, browse on their own, etc, and then they are forced to go to public schools to have nap time, sing songs and learn how to play with alphabet blocks. That sort of education will not be demanded by parents or students in the future. Or at least, not as education.
What does “operate complex websites” mean?
@Brian
Hopefully all ‘anti-racism’ (read: inculcating of white guilt) education would disappear.
pretty sure that there aren’t really many truly private schools. I imagine most if not all still need the state or county’s seal of approval, and have to meet certain regulations.
Also, lets keep in mind you asked about private EDUCATION, and education and schooling are not necessarily the same thing.
4 year olds navigating eBay. 
The early nineteenth century provides us with the closest look at what a free market educational system might look like. It was not entirely free, as many local communities operated schools at public expense (and Massachusetts, of course, was further along than most states at this), but what was striking about that era was the variety of educational options available to people. Bernard Bailyn once noted that educational historiography is loaded with the public goods fallacy - namely, that to most people, education is synonymous with schooling, so most people examining education during this period focus primarily on formal schooling (with the notable exception of Lawrence Cremin). But during the 1800s, there were schools of different sorts - grammer, academies, universities, but there were also private tutors, schools for the deaf and blind, trade organizations that founded schools and there was a growing movement which involved technical and industrial education being financed by those industries seeking to develop the labor skills necessary for their ventures. Voluntary associations themselves were educative institutions, and of course there were parochial schools as well.
But absent child labor laws, most people were educated in the workplace - responsible participation in economic life is the greatest educator of all. It jumpstarts the process of self-education, promotes entrepreneurship, and a more rapid maturation than the abysmal “adolescense” (a pscyho-babble term to describe the abnormalities associated with institutionalization) offers.
And, by the way, literacy was higher back then than now, and was on the rise.
Truth be told, we can’t say what the market would produce, but I would venture that given the vast array of ways that a person can be educated, that the system would very much resemble what existed back then. Most people do not require twelve years of schooling. I would predict a variety of grammer schools would spring up focusing on basic literacy and math skills, and the duration most people spent in them would be limited to a few years. Academies and high schools would probably exist and be similar to what we have, but vocational and technical schools and institutions designed to prepare people for higher learning would emerge alongside.
And, costs would drop significantly, cutting out the extravagant spending on unnecessary tech toys which currently fill the classrooms of state schools.
@Lewis S.
Really interesting stuff, thanks for that reply.
Any sources you could recommend on the matter?
Lawrence Cremin’s massive three-volume set called American Education does an excellent job examining the history of educational modes from colonial times to the twentieth century. He supported government education, but was a great historian, and recognized that education is something much broader than its more common, narrow definition.
Of course, there is always Rothbard’s Education: Free and Compulsory which is an excellent critique of state schooling. Clarence J. Karier’s The Individual, Society, and Education is another good one which gives a political perspective, focusing more on formal schooling.
For a something which comes close to a purely libertarian magnum opus on American education, see John Taylor Gatto and The Underground History of American Education.
EDIT: One more that I just thought of was Charles Glenn’s The Myth of the Common School.
Good thread going here.
I’ve been giving this some thought, and after scanning the posts in this thread, it seems that none my ideas are 100% original. I think you would see all sorts of educational facilities on the rise. Certain industries would offer training schools with the promise that you would have a job after completion. Schools with a reputation for getting students into college might exist. Schools with reputation for producing professional athletes might exist. Schools that teach “basic” life skills (basic money/banking, personal money management, basic math, basic history) might be very popular with average people who just want to get a job. Instead of attending for years, it might only last several months. Who knows? Basic principal still applies: schools would have to offer a coursework that people desire at a price they are willing to pay. Because cost includes the time given up to attend, the length of the coursework would be important to most everyone.
When I think about it the possibilities I can’t help but get very excited! Think about it: instead of serving a twelve year prison term, children would enjoy growing up.
Anyways, that is what I think. A lot of different schools that cater to a lot of different desires. Very few high schools that teach english, history, math, and science beyond the very basics. No doubt that type of education would be available to those willing to pay, but for the most part people would pursue a much more practical and useful education.