Tuesday, June 7, 2011

The Transition Away from Socialist K-12 Education

I have recently reached the conclusion that public schools are a failed experiment. Aside from the less important and ultimately silly questions like prayers in school, socialized K-12 education gives rise the immoral property tax, heinous teachers' unions and mediocre to poor educational outcomes, with no free market incentives involved. K-12 Education is a commodity no different than food, housing and health care. Our society has become warped with the perversion of what is an inborn right and what is a choice.

Okay let's say we can convince and persuade voters to roll back federal and state mandates for so-called public education. (Yes this is a tall order, but only possible with a transition plan, like the one I will outline here.) How do we get from state-run, state-financed education to one where freedom, superior outcomes and lower costs are the rule?

The short answer is to replace the school district charters given by each state with a cooperative model. The state would simply assign the assets of the district to the cooperative, with a service area coincident to the current boundaries. Over time, competitive services would spring up and parents would have choices based on cost, location and outcomes! There are of course some details to be worked out, but this plan seems feasible.

In a truly free society, parents would be able to choose the educational products they think best for their children. No need to enforce compulsory attendance laws and no more "public policy" debates over government resources. The best thing would be that immoral government taxes, like income and property taxes would be ended!