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Hi Resa,

I am convinced your children being home schooled received a much better education than 99 44/100 % of the remainder of American children.

I like the idea of vouchers but what do we do in a situation (exaggerated of course) when a group of "crack heads" open their own Crack Head School, use the vouchers for crack cocaine, denying the children of an education?

Or, open a Jim Jones type Cult school?  I can just hear the "freedom of religion" people screaming. (on both sides of the issue)

Schools would of course have to be evaluated and regulated.  Probably licensed etc.

Just wondering about your thoughts on such situations.

Cheers, Woody

Woody -

You have hit on an area in which I feel very strongly, since I think that educating children is so extremely important.  As a result, you will probably get more of an answer than you wanted!  I have no doubt that some parents would abuse the education voucher system just as they now abuse food stamps, trading the food stamps for cocaine and leaving their children to go hungry.  The reality is that some kids have the misfortune to be born to lousy parents.  This puts those kids at a severe disadvantage no matter what you or I do.  It would be very nice if all kids were born to wonderful parents, but let's not use Utopia as our standard of reference, because it doesn't exist.  All we can do is compare one real option with another real option. 

The real options are to continue with the failed government schools we now have or to move to another arrangement that gives parents more choices.  We know from experience that a free market arrangement, which gives the customer options, provides higher quality services at lower prices than does a government monopoly arrangement, where there is no accountability to the customer.  While I do not think vouchers are the best approach, I do think they are far superior to leaving children trapped in a government monopoly system.  We already have laws on the books that allow the government to deal with people who commit fraud and abuse, and certainly the government would have the right to go after those parents.  However, further government regulation of education establishments would be a big mistake, because it would end up with the private schools simply becoming an arm of the government monopoly school system, making choice simply an illusion.  The risk of that type of control is one reason why I don't think vouchers are the best solution. 

In my view, the best arrangement would be to stop taxing us for education and get the government entirely out of the education (indoctrination) business.  This would recognize the fact that parents have the responsibility for educating children.  (The government reminds parents of this responsibility when parents sue the government schools for failing to do a proper job, but the trouble is that the government already has taken the money through taxes, leaving the parents little choice.)  If parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles were not taxed to provide an education for other people's children, then they could spend their own money to educate their own children as they think best.  Those who could not afford to educate their own children could rely on charities and scholarships.  So, those parents who want to use government money for drugs would be out of luck, and their children would be more likely to end up being helped by church groups or other civic groups who would really take a personal interest in the children and try to help them beyond just regular school hours.  This would put the most severely disadvantaged children in a far better position than they are today.  Certainly, there is a very strong incentive for businesses to contribute to the education of low income students in order to provide a good labor pool for their businesses.  Unfortunately, I do not think that people are ready, politically, to make such a large change at this time, because, like you, they do not trust parents to do what is best for their children.  Mysteriously, however, they do trust bureaucrats, who have repeatedly done a lousy job, leaving large numbers of children illiterate, unprepared, and "falling through the cracks".

Some people think that government control of education came about because children were not receiving an adequate education, but that simply is not true.  In fact, Massachusetts did a study that shows its literacy rates have dropped since the government took over education.  Before the government took over, there were many education options, and the vast majority of children received a good education.  Now that we are much more affluent, there can be little doubt that parents and the community would ensure that children received a good education if their resources were freed up to be used as they thought best and not wasted in the government school disaster.  The impetus behind government control of education is money and power, not concern for children. We now have a crisis in education.  The solution is more freedom, not more regulation.

Resa

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