The notion that we need public schools because education is too important to be left to the free market is one of the strangest excuses public-school apologists invent. On the contrary, I would argue that the exact opposite is true. Education of precious children is too important to be left in the hands of failing schools that never shut down no matter how bad they are, and public-school employees who are almost impossible to fire, no matter how ill-trained they are. Only the free market can give kids the superb education they deserve.
Many public-school authorities either distrust the free market or don’t have the faintest idea how it work. Yet, they live in a free market economy that gives them the highest standard of living in human history. These people live in big, clean houses on paved streets. They have cars, computers, televisions, refrigerators, electric lights, indoor plumbing, supermarkets full of fresh food, airlines to whisk them away to vacations in the Bahamas, and modern antibiotics that can save their lives. All these marvels are products of the free market.
Yet out of blindness or self-interest, many public-school officials either cannot or will not see this free-market miracle of progress for humankind. Many have contempt for the bountiful free market which they insult at every occasion, especially free-market education. Others fear the free market because they fear for their jobs if education was privatized.
Despite their dependence on the free market in their daily lives, education authorities must attack it. Their livelihood depends on keeping the state-run public schools intact. To justify their tenure-guaranteed jobs and power, they must loudly defend the public schools and attack free-market education. To do this, they must attack the free market itself.
In October 1995, Pepsi company officials announced in front of Jersey City Hall that Pepsi would donate thousands of dollars into a scholarship fund that helped low-income kids attend a private school of their choice. What was the immediate response of the local teachers’ union? They threatened the possibility of a statewide boycott of all Pepsi products. Pepsi vending machines in the city were vandalized. Three weeks after their announcement, Pepsi company officials withdrew their scholarship offer.33
Why would a teachers’ union do this? As we noted earlier, teacher unions and many school employees view vouchers, whether private or governmental, as a threat to their jobs and the public-school system. Vouchers allow children to leave failed public schools and take tax money with them. Teacher unions don’t want to deliberately hurt children, but to protect their system at all costs, they try to chain students to the wretched public schools by fighting vouchers.
School authorities claim that children’s minds and futures should not be left in the hands of potentially dishonest, commercial, for-profit schools. To school authorities, making a profit seems to be incompatible with giving kids a good education.
Yet, most of the wonderful, time-saving, often life-saving products and services we buy in the free market are produced by for-profit companies. Take food, for example. As a basic necessity of life, food is more important than education. Without food, we die. Without education, we only lack knowledge. Would school authorities say that food production is too important to be left in the hands of the free market? Should we close down all our for-profit supermarkets and local grocery stores? Should local governments own and operate all farms and supermarkets, as the Soviet government did in communist Russia?
As noted earlier, the Soviet Union tried state-controlled collectivized farms for seventy years. The end result was seventy years of perpetual famine. Meanwhile, for-profit American farmers produced so much food that they exported millions of tons of wheat to the Soviets every year. In fact, for-profit American farmers produce so much food that federal bureaucrats now pay farmers subsidies to not grow food in order to prop up farm prices.
Do public-school authorities claim that for-profit farms, supermarkets, and local grocers do a bad job giving us fresh food every day? I think not, because we do not hear teachers, principals, or school administrators clamoring for socialization of food production in this country. They don’t do so because for-profit farms and supermarkets make their lives better by giving them a huge variety of fresh food at reasonable prices. If we ever socialized food production in this country, I believe public-school employees would scream bloody murder because they would hate the rotten food and lousy service in the new government-run food stores.
Yet, when it comes to our government-controlled public-school education system, school authorities and employees defend the system to the death. One reason they may do so is because they personally benefit by the system, so are willing to turn a blind eye to its failures and overlook the damage it does to millions of school children.
As we noted in Chapter 1, public schools only became fully entrenched and compulsory in this country by the 1890s. Before then, for over 200 years, our education system was voluntary and mostly free-market. Parents were free to educate their kids at home or at relatively inexpensive local grammar schools, religious schools, or colleges. Education was widespread, literacy rates were over 90 percent in the major cities, and parents had complete control over their children’s education. The free-market education system worked great before public schools came along.
We also have an thriving education free-market in our pre-schools and colleges right now. Millions of parents pay for and enroll their kids in thousands of these private schools and colleges across the country. Parents are free to choose which pre-school, kindergarten, or college is best for their kids and can easily change schools if they are not satisfied with its performance. Most parents appreciate the choice and quality these schools offer. If the free market can give kids a great pre-school, kindergarten, or college education, there is no reason it cannot also give us a superb 1st through 12th education system if public schools were privatized.
Japan has proved how effective an education free-market can be. It has a thriving, multi-billion-dollar education industry called juku schools. These are private, for-profit “after-school” schools that Japanese children start as early as the first grade. The schools are so popular that by the fifth grade, 30 percent of students attend a juku school. In 1991, it was found that over half of eighth-graders and an estimated 70 percent of ninth-graders attended these schools. A Tokyo survey found that 90 percent of students had studied at a juku by the time they advanced to the ninth grade.
Why do millions of Japanese parents send their children to private juku schools? In Japan, competition is intense to get into the most prestigious universities because students who attend these universities get the best jobs after graduating. Entry into these universities strictly depends on admission-test scores.
In general, Japanese public schools give children a better and more disciplined education than our schools. However, Japanese parents who want their children to get into the best universities are often not satisfied with their children’s public-school education. Parents send their kids to juku schools for three primary reasons. They want to improve their child’s chances on high-stakes entrance exams, get remedial help for a child who is falling behind in public school, or give their child more advanced instruction if the child is a fast-learner and is not challenged by public-school instruction.
The juku system is huge, vibrant, and fiercely competitive because there is such a big demand for these schools. Instead of forcing a one-size-fits-all curriculum on all students, these schools cater to the needs of individual students and parents who are their customers. They ask what parents and students want and need and design their curriculums and teaching methods accordingly. In juku schools the parent-customer is king, not the public-school employees.
The schools test students before admission to discover their current academic skills and competence. Then, unlike public schools in America, they group students by ability, not age, so class instruction can be specifically geared to students’ individual needs. Also, the schools don’t allow slower students to be “warehoused,” as that would be bad for business. Instead, school administrators give frequent tests to determine each student’s progress and then revise their curriculum or teaching methods to ensure that each student gets the exact kind and level of instruction he or she needs.
Slower students are therefore not embarrassed or humiliated in class as they are in America’s public schools that group children by age, not ability. Also, faster-learning students can study more challenging material and progress more quickly in their studies.
Teachers have a special and highly honored place in the juku system. There are no hiring or licensing restrictions for teachers as there are in Japanese public schools. The teachers come from many backgrounds. Some of them are professional educators, but many others are scientists, economists, college professors, other professionals, and even college students who like to teach. The fierce free-market competition between juku schools forces school owners to hire the best teachers they can find and dismiss those who are ill-trained or incompetent.
The juku system is also good for Japanese teachers. They enjoy giving individualized instruction to motivated students. Good teachers are appreciated both by their employers and parents. Their salaries are based on performance, not how long they have been teaching. Also, some top juku teachers who are in high demand earn as much as professional Japanese baseball players. Public-school teachers in America should take special note of this fact. It shows that a competitive free-market education system could give them high status and huge financial rewards if they do a great job educating children.
Tags: education, free market
