Chris Coyne links to this video of John Stossel’s investigative report, “Stupid in America: How Lack of Choice Cheats Our Kids Out of a Good Education”:The piece highlights many of the problems with America's public school system including government restrictions on choice and the role of unions in resisting reform and change.I watched this today and it is an absolute must-see for anyone at all concerned about the current state of education in the US. In it, Stossel highlights many of the perverse incentives present in our public education system that are tremendously damaging to the youth in America.
Commenting on this same issue In Reason Magazine, Stossel says (emphasis mine):
The inability to fire the bad and reward the good is the biggest reason schools fail the kids. Lack of money is often cited the reason schools fail, but America doubled per pupil spending, adjusting for inflation, over the last 30 years. Test scores and graduation rates stayed flat. New York City now spends an extraordinary $11,000 per student. That's $220,000 for a classroom of twenty kids. Couldn't you hire two or three excellent teachers and do a better job with $220,000?My Take: Stossel has done an excellent job with this video highlighting severe, pervasive, systematic problems in America’s education system. Watching the behavior of the students in public schools and (more importantly) that of teachers and union leaders when asked questions in this video is far more condemning than writing about it could ever be.
Only a monopoly can spend that much money and still fail the kids.
The U.S. Postal Service couldn't get it there overnight. But once others were allowed to compete, Federal Express, United Parcel, and others suddenly could get it there overnight. Now even the post office does it (sometimes). Competition inspires people to do what we didn't think we could do.
If people got to choose their kids' school, education options would be endless. There could soon be technology schools, cheap Wal-Mart-like schools, virtual schools where you learn at home on your computer, sports schools, music schools, schools that go all year, schools with uniforms, schools that open early and keep kids later, and, who knows? If there were competition, all kinds of new ideas would bloom.
This already happens overseas. In Belgium, for example, the government funds education—at any school—but if the school can't attract students, it goes out of business. Belgian school principal Kaat Vandensavel told us she works hard to impress parents. "If we don't offer them what they want for their child, they won't come to our school." She constantly improves the teaching, "You can't afford ten teachers out of 160 that don't do their work, because the clients will know, and won't come to you again."
Watch the video! It just might change the way you think about education.
Further Links:
John Stossel’s Homepage Milton Friedman’s School Choice Research “Stupid in America” Official Webpage “Stupid in America” Q&A
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The following is a paper that I wrote while in a teacher education program at the University of South Florida. I am currently a high school teacher...
Capitalism in School
In the early days of public education schools were controlled by local folks whose goal was to transform students into functional members of society. The teacher in the one room school house was almost completely autonomous with much of the curriculum based upon the makeup of the community. Looking beyond those early days, the modern system of public education has almost completely become a government controlled nightmare. From the local bureaucracies on up to the federal government, education is being run by big government politics. We look no further than any other established institution to find that if it is controlled by the government, then there is less competition and thereby less amount of improvement. There are a multitude of reasons for this, some of which will be explained throughout the body of this paper. In response to the question posed by Joel Spring in his book, American Education 11th edition, “Who should control the switch,” (174) it is the belief of many that there should be an increased level of competition and capitalism in the modern education system.
Earlier it was stated that other businesses must have a sense of competition in order to thrive. A prime example of this is the health care system in the United States. While the system does have its shortcomings, it is arguably the best healthcare system in the world. A large majority of the modern medicines and medical techniques are developed in this country. The doctors in the US, as a profession, are the absolute best in the world. Incidentally, many of the doctors in other parts of the world are educated and trained in the United States. In many other countries, hospitals and other medical facilities are state-run. This doesn’t allow for the type of quality control and expertise of care. The reason for this is simple; there is no one accountable if a mistake is made. The limitations of care in state run medical facilities is not only restricted to accountability during mistakes, but also in research and development. If a person or company is not going to get paid, then there is no physical incentive to make much progress. Of course the intrinsic rewards of practicing medicine (or teaching for that matter) are great; they simply aren’t enough to make real improvements in the profession. In terms of educational practices, we must take note of how institutions such as the medical profession are set up in order to truly make improvements in the modern educational system in the United States. Though education cannot be totally privatized, there must be a balance between the idea of individual profit, and public/government control. This will come when the people who teach are seen as true professionals and are paid accordingly.
The people with the most direct contact to students are the teachers. The teaching profession has received a somewhat tarnished reputation among professionals in other occupations. Their philosophy is, “those who can, do…those who cannot, teach.” While this is simply not true for many teachers, there are some with whom this statement is accurate. Though human potential dictates that every teacher has the capacity to be great, there may not be proper motivation to do more than the bare minimum to keep their jobs. The main rewards for being a good teacher come from within that teacher’s heart. The intrinsic rewards include emotions that are unable to be put into words. While emotional rewards are extremely important, they do not do enough to make a real difference in the system. The extrinsic rewards in any profession are the catalyst to bring about change in a stagnant institution. Without the rewards that come along with competition, such as money, there is no physical incentive to make improvements. Along with the improvement in pay rate, another positive aspect of competition includes the elimination of teachers who fall back on teaching as a last resort. More people will want to be teachers, thus fostering even more competition. Again, the medical profession is a prime example of this. As more people want to be doctors (for the high pay rate along with the intrinsic rewards) the requirements to get into medical school have become very high and very competitive. If the extrinsic rewards for being a teacher were greater, then it can be expected that the same sort of struggle to become a teacher (as it is with doctors) will exist. Though this is a great idea in theory the government alone does not have the capacity to pay teachers the amount of money that will make this happen. It must come from the private sector, as it does in the medical profession.
The key to making a profitable situation out of education, and still providing strict government scrutiny, is to balance the areas in which teachers and administrators make a profit off of providing a great education to students. Any business that is totally run by the government or by private means has inherently dangerous attributes that do not serve the institution of education. Completely state run businesses and programs are a seemingly great idea but history has proven that they do not work. For example, the ultimate system of government in which the state controls everything is the institution of communism and socialism. Everywhere that this experiment has been tried, it has failed. Going to the other extreme, complete privatization leads to a wealthy class that is far removed from the working and lower classes. In this system the rich get richer and the vast majority of the poor stay poor. However, in the United States’ system of balancing these two ideological systems (left wing socialism with right wing capitalism), capitalism with elements of government control has prevailed. With the majority of educational thought being in the socialistic side, it is easy to see why the system does not work as well as it could. Perhaps it is because education is so vital to the survival of the nation that some people feel it necessary that the government and politics control every aspect of learning. Again, this is a myth that is simply not true. In every industry (including medicine, defense, technology, agriculture, and every other established industry) which has a competitive nature, the United States has a commanding lead over every other country in the world. In current education, this is arguably not so. In many education statistics the US is far behind the rest of the world.
The way to make the balance between the current socialistic state of education and a capitalistic system can be difficult. First off, in order to allow schools in poorer neighborhoods do well is to provide a certain amount of money (from the government, since businesses are less likely to invest there) that is inversely proportional to the mean net income of that neighborhood. In other words, the poorer the neighborhood, the more government money that neighborhood receives. A wealthier district would have less government subsidy and more corporate backing. Certain laws would have to be enacted to avoid monopoly (and thus price increases) situations. Also, tax incentives must be provided to businesses who supply supplemental resources to schools (whether it is money or goods/services). In order for businesses to invest there must be an element of return on that investment. To do this, taxes may have to be cut in order to allow for tuition to be paid on the part of students. Again, tuition costs are held to a minimum by a combination of government subsidy and competition between schools and the businesses that invest in those schools.
Though this is a very broad generalization of one of the problems of the US public education system, there are some points that if explored further may yield some impressive results. Without a capitalistic balance within schools, the problem of accountability becomes greater. Many teachers and administrators (at the school level) only do enough to get by. At the bureaucratic level, politicians make decisions that are designed only to benefit their particular political point of view. One needs to look at the medical profession to see how the system of education should be run. The competitive nature between students trying to get into medical school (and be successful) yields doctors who are the best in the world. Incidentally, doctors in this country are paid very well. With a higher level of accountability and competition, teachers will be higher paid thus attracting more people into the teaching profession. The government does not have the means (fiscal or philosophical) to pay teachers what they should be paid; therefore it is up to private companies to invest in the education of our young people.
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