The Case for School Choice, Part I

It’s been more than 15 years since CF&P released its video about school choice, so let’s update the argument for educational freedom with this new video from John Stossel.

For most Americans, the biggest argument for school choice is improved educational outcomes (see here, here, here, and here).

And that’s the most persuasive argument for me as well. However, since I’m a fiscal policy wonk, I can’t help but also highlight this screen shot from the video.

Simply stated, government schools cost a lot of money and deliver sub-par results.

And we also know that dumping more money into government schools does not make things better (see here, here, here, and here).

Part of the problem, as illustrated by another screen shot from the video, is that more money has translated into a bigger bureaucracy.

This might be good news for teacher unions and the education bureaucracy, but it’s not good news for students, parents, and taxpayers.

The good news is that school choice is spreading. It’s gone from a libertarian fantasy to a political reality (West Virginia, Arizona, Iowa, Utah, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Alabama, and Texas).

The trend is so positive that Robert Pondiscio of the American Enterprise Institute has an article speculating about the end of government schools. Here are some excerpts.

…we’ve hit and passed “peak public school.” A school choice revolution is rapidly reshaping how public education is organized, funded, and delivered in America. …millions of parents have been given the power to pull their children out of district-run public schools—taking with them the lion’s share of the money the state would have otherwise spent… Soon, more than half of US families with school-age children will have the option to educate their children privately with public funds. …the reckoning has finally come. Public education is on the verge of an unprecedented crack-up. In fact, it’s already underway. …school choice allows families to select educational approaches that align with their values, aspirations, and children’s interests and needs. School choice needn’t justify itself as merely an improvement over traditional public schools. It is an intrinsic good… To be sure, the zip code–driven default mode of educating our children is unlikely to disappear entirely. It will remain a common mode for a significant number of children if only because of habit and inertia. But we have hit and passed peak public education. Its influence and dominance can only wane.

I think this optimism is warranted.

Here’s what I expect will happen. With so many states now adopting choice, we should soon see even more scholarly evidence that this leads to better educational outcomes.

And we’ll also see more evidence that teacher unions are producing dismal outcomes in blue states.

This will create even more pressure for further reform. At some point, the only non-choice states will be ultra-left states such as California, New York, and Illinois.

P.S. If I’m forced to provide a pessimistic scenario, it would probably be significant electoral victories for the left in the midterm elections followed by the election of an AOC-type leftist to the White House in 2028 (Trump’s first term led to total Democrat control of Washington in 2021, so this part of the scenario is realistic).

At that point, the Democratic-controlled Congress uses the power of the purse to threaten states with a loss of funds if they don’t repeal or emasculate school choice.

P.P.S. If you don’t want the left to control Washington after the 2028 elections, you should hope Trump changes his mind about protectionism. Voters are more likely to punish Republicans if the economy is weakened by bad trade policy.