Market Based Education System

I been thinking about the educational system in America and thinking about how it can improve. The other night I re-watched Milton Friedman’s “Free To Choose”. I re-watched certain parts but the part I found interesting was the education part and how really we have not advanced. “Free To Choose” was made in 1980 and 30 years have no past and still the educational system is rotten. I would argue rotten for parents, teachers, and students. The main problem I see with the public educational system is that the government has a monopoly on education.

Performance at schools has been downright terrible. The usual argument is “If the schools had the more money”. Schools do take money to run no doubt. However, do schools need the most modern football stadium scoreboard or other nice perks? I say no since the role of the school is to educate people. Thinking back to my own days in K-12 there was always an emphasis on programs that sometimes had nothing to do with learning. Not only were some programs a waste of money but time as well. One example of this was in 5th grade when we everyone had to stay after school to practice various skits for D.A.R.E. (now defunct I believe). Going back to the money point the Heritage Institute issued a report in 2008 showed “Total real spending per student (including all levels of government funding) has increased by 23.5 percent over the past decade and 49 percent over the past 20 years.” Yet, if you also look at tests scores from the same 20 years they were flat. Where is all this money going? It obviously can’t be towards educating students if scores have remained flat. Schools offer programs that may or may not benefit students but if schools were in a market place they would have to answer to customers. I myself would like to see a market-based school system. Charter schools would still be better than the current situation however; a market-based school system would be the golden standard. So in this market-based school system parents would pay for their kids K-12 education. If parents paid for their children’s education I would be willing to bet the parents would be much more involved than they are today. True, one could argue that parents do pay for school through taxes however, if you have two families (one poor and one rich) and kids from both families go to the same school then the rich family has to pay more even though both kids are getting the same service. Schools could offer different programs. One example might be a “traditional” education where students took courses in history, math, science, English. Other schools could emphasis art and acting. Schools could cater to different wants and desires by students and parents. Some people really should not have to take art courses or music classes when they know they will never use it and it has no value to their future job. I feel the same way about people that want to work in some type of vocational job but really can’t get training in the normal school setting. Low income families could still get a voucher and decide where they wanted to go. Schools could also dismiss students if parents were not active enough if their children’s education development.

This market-based school system would be free to open entry and allow schools to be run like businesses in terms of serving parents and students and creating education value. Schools could compete on where their graduates go after graduating, feedback from previous students/parents, and the quality of the teachers. Bad teachers would be replaced and good ones would stay and get paid more. Bullying has been a big topic recently and under a market based school you could argue there would be less bullying since instead of two students being forced to go to school with one another they could pick where they wanted to go.