The first question that is often raised about goods is why should the public sector provide them at all. It is generally acknowledged that the private sector is significantly more efficient and providing goods than the public one. The private sector provides the cars that we drive, the clothes that we wear, and even the food that we eat. Moreover, it does all of that very efficiently. For example, in old communist
Some goods though would probably not be provided in sufficient quantity or quality if left to the public sector. National defense is an obvious one, police and fire protection are others. It would seem to be inefficient for each neighborhood to have to hire a security guard. However, not all goods are so easy to divide up into just public or private. There are other goods that many people believe provide enough benefit to society that even though the private sector can produce them should not be left up just to the private sector. I will look at a number of those different goods and the implications for society over the next couple articles.
Education is one prime example of a good that is easily provided by the private sector but is often instead provided by the public. Why is education often considered to be a different good than say the house we live in. And why is lower and higher education often treated different? The main reason is because the education level of a society is a large factor in how successful that society is. People want a good education for themselves so they can make a good living etc, but it’s also important for their friends and neighbors to have a good education too. People with an education normally commit less crime, and are more productive members of society. Therefore by ensuring that the education level of a society is of a high level the whole society is better off. Thus it is beneficial for people of greater means to pay a bit extra in taxes so that people of lesser means get an education. Society as a whole will be better off. So since the private sector is not providing enough education, the public sector steps in and starts providing it.
However, because we gave the public school systems a virtual monopoly over our nations kids, our public schools started to behave like a monopoly. IE, many of them started to not worry about the quality of the product they were producing, or giving the tax payers good value for their money. The teachers unions, and the school bureaucracy became entrenched interests that without competition did not have to focus on producing a good product (IE educated kids). So the taxes people are paying to raise the nations education level are in many cases being wasted. One has to look no further than LAUSD with it’s 50% dropout rate than to see that tax payers are not getting their monies worth.
How do we fix this then? If you ask the teachers unions, or the school bureaucracy you will always get the same uniform answer, “WE NEED MORE MONEY!”. However, we already are spending more money per pupil than most private schools but achieving poorer results. And year after year even though schools promise they are reforming and improving no real results emerge. What can we do then to improve our schools, are there any other models that produce better results? Actually if you look past high school and to college you will see a dramatic difference. Our colleges and universities are ranked as some of the best in the world. And this includes our public ones. People from all over the world try to enroll in UCLA, but strangely not so many at the high school located just a short distance from it. What is the difference between the two sets of schools? In a word “choice”. When people have the choice on where they want to go it creates competition. Competition spurs product quality and innovation in both the public and private sector. Once you take away competition the quality of the product goes down.
The education establishment is against choice because they will be forced to improve or die. Instead they prefer the status quo where they can continue to muddle along while mouthing platitudes about improvement. Yes it’s possible some might get shut down if they don’t improve. But why should a school be able to keep operating if it’s not teaching kids? Isn’t that just a huge waste of tax payer money as well as the kid’s time? If they aren’t going to learn anything mine as well let them go play outside :)
We need to wise up, stop listening to the bull, and start demanding results. I propose the first thing we should do is make funding for schools a national issue. No matter which state, county or city a kid is born in they should be able to get a quality education. In conjunction with this we should institute national standardized tests that all kids both public, and private should have to pass. Thereby assuring that all kids would be educated to a certain standard. Public or private schools that whose students were not properly educated would be cut off from funding (again why pay for schools that don’t educate). Different schools would be free to use different methods to educate, as long as they met the national standards. After that they would be free to provide whatever services consumers (parents) wanted. Some maybe more music, some maybe more sports, others perhaps a trade. Innovation and choice would ensure that all kids received a good education and would graduate with the basic set of skills needed to make it in today’s fast paced world.
The evidence is already in, we know choice works and produces better schools. The question is do we have the courage and conviction to change.
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