Criticism of Vouchers, Defense of Monopoly

January 31, 2004

Over at Assorted Stuff, Tim Stahmer says U.S. Secretary Rod Paige is "Full of it" simply because he has positive words for vouchers and negative words about the government monopoly over schools in poor neighborhoods.

He quotes from a CNN article:

Paige said the experiment "isn't about dismantling the public school system. And this isn't a plan to federalize the schools." Rather, he said, it is a means to offer choice to those who couldn't afford it otherwise.

Mr. Stahmer's response is, "No, this isn't about federalizing the schools, it's about privatizing them."

Critics often level the charge of "privatizing" without bothering to define the term, or to even to mount a significant argument that "privatizing" is even what would happen if vouchers were enacted. The term simply serves as a scare word, and just mentioning it does all the arguing that's needed.

We disagree.

Wholesale privatization is a straw man. While small-scale privatization would be a welcome change from the current monopoly, it is precisely this increase of choices that will spur failing urban schools to improve.

A good analogy of what we mean is what happened to the U.S. auto industry after the 1970s, when competition opened up for foreign car manufacturers. While a cynic might have said at the time that "the government's just going to force everyone to buy Japanese," what actually happened is that Detroit responded, and began to match Japanese quality. So today, not everyone's buying Japanese, people are buying whatever car brand they want.

But two previously-unthinkable side effects to the increased competition is that American auto exports to Japan increased dramatically, and that Japanese auto manufacturers would start building plants here in the U.S., hiring American workers.

Getting back to education, voucher programs will enable poor parents (who've previously had zero options) to now select schools. Public schools will improve to increase the likelihood that parents will chose to stay. (Those who don't believe this will happen must feel that public schools are even more ossified than they already are, thus making our argument for us!)

The bottom line is that increased competition improves almost everyone. Those that don't improve don't survive the market.

The CNN article continues (emphasis ours):

"When students are required by law to attend a particular school, the school doesn't have to do anything to secure quality or produce scholarship," Paige said. "It just has to open the door and collect the local and state stipend for each student."

But Mr. Stahmer's response is over the top, putting words in Dr. Paige's mouth that he never said (emphasis ours):

So according to our national "educational" leader (and I'm being very charitable with that phrase), those of us who work for a public school system are simply sitting around, drinking coffee and waiting for the next check to arrive from Washington or Richmond. Dr. Paige believes public schools have a "monopoly" and therefore no one is even trying to improve student learning.

He doth protest too much.

Dr. Paige isn't saying that all public schools are crap, full of apathetic teachers. He isn't even saying that most schools fit that description. All he said was that public schools in poor neighborhoods (where the parents cannot afford private school tuition) don't have any requirement to produce scholarship.

Make no mistake, there are quite a few schools in poor neighborhoods that do bend over backwards to educate children (see NoExcuses.org for details), but these schools swim against the grain.

We can tell you firsthand that what Dr. Paige says is absolutely correct. We've taught in inner-city schools where there was zero competition for children (this was before the state passed its charter school law), and we can tell you honestly that it was a living hell. Violence (against staff and fellow students), the fungal spread of graffiti, trash-strewn hallways and classrooms, and a general aura of mayhem were the norm.

Why was it this way? Two reasons.

First, the adults in charge of the school didn't give a rat's rear end how the school performed, since they were getting paid either way! Thanks to a powerful teachers union and an equally powerful principals union, no staff member was ever in danger of even receiving a strongly-worded memo. Plus, at this particular school the principal was a master of information, and saw to it that serious incidents weren't reported.

While there were a few courageous teachers who closed their doors and had an academic program within their classrooms, these folks were rare. In the rest of the school, educational malpractice was the law of the land.

And second, there were no pressures for it to be otherwise. None.

We suspect that Mr. Stahmer's a good teacher in a good school, a good public school. We are happy that his kids are probably getting a decent education.

But far too many schools in our inner cities aren't fit for a dog. Competition and parental choice are desperately needed.

And about those high-poverty, high-performing public schools which are already turning out young scholars? They've got nothing to fear from competition.