A Lesson in Liberty

Down but not out, educational voucher propositions live on. The disheartening defeat of California's voucher initiative, Proposition 174, on November 9 was a setback for this crucial step towards privatized education, but all is not lost.

A system of privatized education is the only way to meet the growing demands and stresses placed on this nation's schools. And vouchers will be the most efficient way to privatize education. Despite the recent setback, we must continue to pursue vouchers as a genuine solution to our educational crisis.

Voucher systems, while not perfect, are the best intermediate step towards improving education in America. Voucher systems should be adopted in states and maintained for not more then five or ten years. Ultimately, public schools should be abolished once and for all as complete private education becomes more viable.

Libertarian thinker Nathaniel Branden crystallized the privatization sentiment in an essay included in Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal. He responds to the question of whether education should be compulsory and tax-supported as it is today:

"The answer to the question becomes evident if one makes the question more concrete and specific, as follows: Should the government be permitted to remove children forcibly from their homes, with or without the parents' consent, and subject the children to educational training and procedures of which the parents may or may not approve? Should citizens have their wealth expropriated to support an educational system which they may or may not sanction, and to pay for the education of children who are not their own? To anyone who understands and is consistently committed the principles of individual rights, the answer is clearly: No."

This statement is enlightening, if slightly misleading. Very wealthy parents do have some say in the kinds of schools their children attend, as well as in those schools' curricula. Parents whose children attend public schools possess only limited power over the content of their children's education. Furthermore, the issue of tax-payment is non-negotiable.

But under the current system, only the wealthy enjoy the benefits of individual freedom. Privatization would grant all citizens a decent measure of liberty when it comes to school choice. Private education would indeed serve the common good.

Vouchers, the first step toward restoring liberty, would enable parents to get partial refunds of the taxes they pay toward education. They could send these funds to the private schools their children attend.

Without vouchers, the alternatives to public education are limited; very few private schools fall within the price range of the average family. But voucher funds will lead to the opening of solid alternative schools--as they recently have in Milwaukee.

Large numbers of these alternative schools have not already been founded because the government confiscates the money people might otherwise spend on their children's education. Most people are unwilling and unable to pay twice for education. Under a voucher program, private schools would eventually be able to compete with public schools for virtually all school-aged children across America.

Public schools would, indeed, suffer; lower funding would lead to fewer books and teachers, while the number of overpaid administrators would likely remain constant. However, in Milwaukee, alternative education programs provide better education than public schools. Moreover, they do so for between $2,500 and $3,000 per pupil compared to an average public school cost of over $5,000 per pupil. And with a voucher, just about any family in the nation can afford some form of private schooling.

As new schools opened to take advantage of the alternative demands for education, schooling would be both diversified and improved. Since new schools would not have to conform to the precise rules and regulations of their states, they would be in better positions to meet the various educational needs of tax-paying citizens. And education would be improved because private schools, unlike public schools, would have to provide children with high quality education--or shut down.

The logical extension of privatization is to eliminate public schools completely--and, consequently, to abolish property taxes and expropriated monies that currently pay for public education.

In a modern industrialized society such as the United States of America, public education is an anachronism. Private schools have consistently proven their superiority in educating children.

Furthermore, the concept of public education in a society that values liberty should be unfathomable. Education is indeed vital to the success of the nation. But the government has failed miserably to meet the nation's educational needs. The waste of time, money and resources must stop. Our children are too important to turn over to government mismanagement.

Only private schools, which must keep quality high to attract students and keep costs down to remain in business, can meet the needs of a nation whose pace of change is as great as America's. When private individuals are given the freedom to take responsibility for themselves, we may be able to make education work in this country.