(click on ads for more details)

Who's abandoning whom in Education?

by D. Eric Schansberg

Professor of Economics
IUS

The anonymous editorial (in the C-J) ripping Rep. Shaughnessy for his statements on education (10/4/01) misses the bigger issues. It's not so much that public schools might be "abandoned" by shifting the funding mechanism from providers to parents. Instead, one should ask why anybody would adamantly defend a system that has clearly abandoned too many of those it is called to serve-- the children who attend them and the taxpayers who pay for them. In the absence of competition, why would someone have faith in government to provide services efficiently? At present, we spend an average of $7,000 per student in our public elementary and secondary schools-- $4,500 in taxes from the average family of four. Is there any doubt that more private sector involvement and additional competition would cause the costs to decline while maintaining or increasing quality?

And at present, the government schools have tremendous monopoly power over
parents, especially the poor who cannot afford the alternatives. Again, is there any doubt that heightened competition would improve the quality and flexibility of education available to our children, especially for the poor? Our focus should be on helping the poor, the children, and over-burdened taxpayers, not protecting the monopoly power of the privileged suppliers.