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From: tedrick@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (Tom Tedrick)
Newsgroups: net.sci
Subject: Re: privatization of education
Message-ID: <14841@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Sun, 13-Jul-86 03:40:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.14841
Posted: Sun Jul 13 03:40:11 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 14-Jul-86 01:12:32 EDT
References: <3719@decwrl.DEC.COM> <136@cci632.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: tedrick@ernie.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Tom Tedrick)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
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>	(1) The general idea is good.  Education is not a proper
>	function of government (nor is much else of what it's
>	currently involved in).

Agreed. I suggest the proper role of government is to provide an overall
framework for cooperation where unrestricted behavior by individuals is
detrimental to overall welfare, and to provide those benefits not likely
to be produced by freely competitive markets.

Education has sometimes been used to propagate the worldview that the
ruling class wishes to impose on the population. That is hardly
the America way (the land of the free and all that).

>	(2) Very few public school systems provide the quality
>	of education that is both desirable and possible.

Agreed.

>	(3) There are quite a few private schools, mostly
>	sponsored by religious organizations (alas), and the
>	ones I'm familiar with do a fairly good job.

Agreed. The discipline of the marketplace forces out the incompetents.

>	(4) Many families cannot afford to send their kids to
>	private schools, but if their public school tax were
>	rebated then they would be much more likely to.  This
>	idea is sometimes called "tax credits for education".

What I would like to see is something like the above. Perhaps
an "educational voucher" system, whereby individuals can use
these vouchers to pay for educational fees. The idea would be
to support some competition between schools for students, in
hopes that better quality education would result.

Also by having individuals make the choice for themselves, better
judgement would develop in these individuals.

At present, attempts to improve educational quality often fall into
the category of adding new levels of bureaucracy and red tape to
the existing system. Whatever the intentions of the reformers, the
result is greater complexity and confusion, incentives for inefficiency,
disincentives for efficiency.

In summary, rather than funding schools directly I suggest indirect
funding via some kind of voucher system. Let the people choose the
schools that best suit their needs rather than imposing an educational
system on them. Let quality education result from the discipline
of competition between schools. 

>	(5) I can see some point to requiring licensing of
>	private schools used as an alternative to public schools,
>	for much the same reason as requiring a certain amount of
>	schooling at all: merely to protect the interests of
>	children of irresponsible parents.  However, this is a
>	delicate matter, since we don't want the government
>	regulating ideas.  Yet almost anything would be an
>	improvement over the current situation.

Agreed.