I was wondering how the rest of you on this board feel about voucher systems in education, in which the US government would continue to fund education but parents would be able to choose which school to send their children to. Personally, I love this idea because it would introduce choice and competition into a sector which badly needs it.
What do you all think of this idea? I assume we can all agree that it is better than the socialist education system we have today, but do you all object to it on the grounds that the government should not be involved in education at all?
I generally believe that all taxes (welfare, for example) are a form of stealing, but I must admit – I really like the voucher system advocated by Milton Friedman and many other economists. I’m interested to see what you guys/girls think about it.
Voucher systems are bad. They are egalitarian. Not all students require the same time. It is the parents’ job. It is impossible to implement a successful voucher system without regulating education. Is a school that only teaches “education-unrelated” be funded? If so, then what is considered “education-unrelated”? This can get arbitrary. Should a school that only teaches mathematics be funded? No. The government has to choose the topics that schools should teach.
I agree, and certainly all of the voucher system proposals I have heard promised to decrease regulation over schools.
Excuse my own ignorance, but what is the “Mises-ian” stance on education? I would imagine it would advocate zero government intervention in education, but would this really make our country better off? If poor families chose not to send their children to school at all because it was cheaper not to, how would this help the poor break the “cycle” of poverty?
In my opinion, the perfect education system would be one in which there was no federal government involvement (only state gov’ts), and each state participated in a voucher system which allowed individuals/families to choose and therefore gives schools an incentive to compete for customers/students.
I’m sure there would exist cases where sorry parents don’t do much for their child. However, I submit that a LARGE number of publicly educated children, children that attended public schools for 12 or more years, aren’t substantially any better off than the neglected children. What I think would occur is that any level of neglect would be more than offset by the overall rise in levels of education. This overall rise would fuel a better economy and any affects of neglect would be mitigated by proxy and would most likely deliver an economic net gain when comparing even the most uneducated to the typical student of today. It sounds reasonable to in some way ensure that ‘no child is left behind’ but all this does is leave behind a whole lot more. Socialistic solutions sound quite rational because you’re attributing to the collective the sentience of an individual. You must remember that you’re dealing with an entirely different beast. It’s like assuming Leonardo da Vinci and Paris Hilton will contribute equally to the progress of civilization.
I think the ongoing case favors vouchers, but I have an unusual concern I think is worthy of consideration. I’d like everyone’s input. I haven’t thought it thru and I’m a slow thinker, so maybe the answer is simple.
I’m concerned about how this new dependent class will affect taxation. I know the educational system is currently well populated. I also know that many work in this system for over 20 yrs. I’m wondering if replacing this special interest with the parental special interest will lend more extortionist tendencies to the government. Will this changing from one special interest to another change the nature and demands of that special interest?
As usual Rothbard rarely fails to deliver the goods… if only he had been given ten more years to live!
The “Voucher System” is inherently flawed. It’s the same old “free meal” theory exposed countless times by respectable authors like Gary North, worse yet the money will have to be spent on State-sanctioned and approved goods. The only difference will be that people would delude themselves into thinking they are “free to choose”.
milton friedman did advocate voucher,s however in his later lifve he was quite explicit that they were only an improvement, and ultimately fully free market would be best. but as a form of transition, as an achievable short term goal, they were a relatively better option. just wanted to make the point that friedman didnt advocate vouchers as the best system.
I think that vouchers are a bad compromise that will eventually do more harm than good. Allow vouchers, and you leave the State in the business of redistributing money. You still have the state taxing people, and then giving back some of that money so they can send their children to school. Why not just let the people keep their money, and deprive the state of the ability to indoctrinate children via compulsory education?
This statement contradicts itself. If the government funds education, then it chooses who is or isn’t apt to receive these funds, ipso facto it is the government that continues to choose what schools parents may send their children to.
Slippery Slope Argument Against Vouchers: Once the government pays it will place more and more stipulations on that money until it completely controls the institution. What is worse is that the institution grows to depend more and more on that money until it can’t resist the pressure to conform.
Stolen Money Bad Argument Against Voucers: The government has received less than 100 million in donations in 3 years with a budget averaging 2.8 trillion. That is 3.33 x 10^7. So 3.33x10^7/2.8 x 10^12 = 1.2 x 10^-5 or 0.000012 or 0.0012% of the federal budget comes voluntarily. The rest is stolen. All money stolen is not efficiently used. Consumers are worse off and the stealer must confiscate more and more to keep the system running. Furthermore it costs a lot to steal money, about 1/3 of the take. Charitable organizations average getting 90% of the take to the beneficiaries.
Also, in the somewhat glorious history of the USA, tax payer provided education is a relatively new thing. When tax payer provided education did not exist the literacy rates were much higher than what we have now. Also the USA is the most generous population in the world. Anyone who can not afford a private school need only seek help from one or more of thousands of organizations and millions of individuals to pay for. For example: If there was no tax payer stolen funded education system, I would give the highschooler next store 1 thousand to go to school. I will not pay that on top of the 3600 per year I pay in school taxes but I would in the absence of them.
I view vouchers as good and bad. First, they are a step, albeit a small one, in the right direction. The problem lies with governments willingness to interfere in the schools who accept the vouchers. For a voucher system to work-ish…you can’t have any new regulations. Giving people a “choice” is always a good idea but that choice really isn’t a choice if the government forces private and parochial schools to follow the same guidelines as public schools. If you can get a system in place that does not add any further regulation then it is a better option than what we currently have. However, vouchers are not a great option because you are still stealing private monies for the “public” good. That is, you are taking what is rightfully mine and giving it to someone else just because they have children.
I like vouchers because they are better than what we currently have but the idea is to completely eliminate public funding of schools altogether.
I’m not really sure that vouchers are a good idea. But the resistance to vouchers from the educational associations and other statist types is so strong that I’d be willing to give it a go, if only to piss them off.
lol. Hey mac, that’s a good idea for a litmus test. “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” Sooooo, you MUST be guilty!
I do wonder, however, how transferring the largesse from the public education system to the parents will affect the politics. Will the parents’ political empowerment be a net gain or a net reduction in my loss of property? This isn’t addressing the quality of education (as a counter to the possible negative affects, i.e., higher taxation ). I do believe the quality of education is the worst a particular society can ‘achieve’ when that education is administered by the state. That doesn’t mean that if a school is run by the government everyone will become illiterate. It means that the society is a given. The quality of it’s inhabitants will be assumed to be the same, whether employing corecive measures or allowing voluntary pursuits of education. Total government control of education contrasted with total voluntarism in education would yield the greatest possible difference between the levels of education that society X would produce. Non-coercive educational system compared with a fully coercive: Non-coercive MINUS Coercive = GREATEST difference. That difference means that the goodness of education is maximally minimized. Even though education remains a net benefit, the State’s negation does not equal the intrinsic value of knowledge, i.e., God > State.
It is surprising to me that anyone on this board would support a voucher system. The assumption that government vouchers will introduce “competition” into the public school system is ludicrous. The public schools will co-opt any private school posing a competitive threat through use of existing legislation and court decisions. The argument about conforming to government regulation when taking government money has been settled in education. It has been settled, as always, in favor of the government regulator. Anyone on this board who believes that government money in the form of a voucher for private school tuition will exempt the recipient (private schools) from already existing government regulation is naive. Does anyone really believe that the private school system will benefit from increased governmental reporting, quota systems, Title IX, special education requirements, and law suits involving the Pledge of Allegiance? Does anyone really believe VMI is a better school now that it has been forced to accept government regulation because it was taking government money? The only reason I can see for wanting vouchers in the first place is because private schools do a better job educating students. So why would you want to break something that is working. As soon as the NEA realizes that it can use existing labor laws to organize the private schools it will drop its resistance to vouchers. At that point the Democratic Party will support vouchers, as they will get a cut of the tax dollars involved via political contributions from the NEA.
Personally, I think it should be 100% free market, no doubt! But why dont the cancerous bastards just evaluate how good we little ignorant, common folk are educatin their, I mean, our children, by simply testing them? Why govern how they get an education? They could simply use the current tests to evaluate kids and see how it’s going. They could compare results to the public system’s results and, if they want, international results. Just have freakin faith in the people that are financing your schemes and see if we can 'get ‘er done’ w/o their obnoxious involvement. They’ll say some BS like they don’t want to leave any kids behind, but what they’re afraid of is that once parents get a taste of freedom and a taste of what a free market education system can do, it’ll make them obselete. “They don’t need us anymore! Boo-hoo!”
Let us breathe the fresh air for a millisecond for pete’s sake!
I would certainly prefer to get rid of public education altogether and just have a free market in education. Since I don’t see public education drying up and blowing away any time soon, the real question is whether or not vouchers is a step in the right direction or not. Giving parents more control over their children’s education strikes me as a good idea. And while I agree that vouchers could be used to advance government regulation over private schools, anyone who supports vouchers is essentially agreeing that yes, private schools do a better job than public schools. From there, how far a step is it to say that people should just pay for their education directly, instead of going through the “middleman” of government?
Because an incrementalist approach works better. When Socialists realized that the “great proletarian revolution” wasn’t coming anytime soon, they threw their support to liberal and “progressive” groups and over a few generations have come very close to achieving their ultimate goals. Until the libertarian movement learns to do the same (advocate for successive approximations to what we desire) we will always be a marginalized fringe group pushing for radical changes in society. Government-funded voucher systems are still a form of theft and unnecessary government regulation, but they are less egregious than the full-out government-run schools we have now. Go to the voucher system to get students out of government-owned schools, then gradually decrease the scope of the voucher program until education is given over to the market like it should be. Besides, a sudden shock in aggregate demand for private education services would cause too much havoc, better to have a slight transitional period. Permanent change comes not by revolution but be evolution.