Time to Let Capitalism Solve the Public Education Crisis

Imagine paying almost $8,000 a year for a product that didn’t work 40% of the time. Would you want your money back? Further imagine that the company selling the product not only refused to refund your money, but also asked the government to protect them from competition and require you to buy from them and only them. Who would tolerate this for a nanosecond?

Recent ISAT scores report that more than 40% of Idaho’s public school students failed to meet their expected academic growth. Last year taxpayers were billed $7,733 per student. Factoring in the failure rate, the real cost to produce a student that met expected growth was over $13,000. This is simply outrageous.

At the same time the average Idaho teacher is being paid an effective annualized rate of $35 per hour. Adding insult to injury, the teacher’s union wants to raise the sales tax rate by 20% to further enhance their salaries at taxpayer’s expense. Now the Idaho Supreme Court has jumped into the game by requiring the legislature to pay the cost to construct new school buildings for districts that overspend on employees.

The present government-funded and government-protected system is horribly dysfunctional. Of course the cartel will claim that if they just had more money, they could solve these problems. Forty years of history tells a different story. The more money that goes into this monopoly, the less it produces. The present system is holding taxpayers and students hostage.

The good news is that there is a solution. Capitalism has created the greatest wealth in history with a simple system of incentives. We can expect capitalism to do the same for public education. A little bit of competition can go a long way. Since private enterprise is directly accountable to customers who are paying the bill, it generally charges half of what a government bureaucracy costs. What would it be like if the public education system stood behind their products with money-back guarantees like private enterprise?

With district monopolies failing to provide quality services for 40% of our children, isn’t time to give someone else a chance to serve our students? What do we have to lose? The legislature must offer vouchers and tax credits to create a real market in public education. Idaho’s 114 district fiefdoms need competition. Competition will give our kids a quality education and taxpayers real value for their money. Competition has made America’s higher education system the envy of the world. Let’s use it to help K-12 education.

The present public education system has proven to be woefully inadequate in creating the human capital necessary to be successful in a global network economy. A voucher or tax credit of $3,500 could save taxpayers millions and dramatically improve quality. Imagine great companies like Apple Computer or Fed Ex or Hewlett Packard creating schools for our kids at half the current cost.

The idea of parents freely choosing which school is best for their children in an open market terrifies many of those who have grown comfortable enjoying the tremendous benefits of a government financed and protected monopoly. You can expect these beneficiaries to demonize anyone that threatens their cartel. They will claim that competition will destroy public schools. On the contrary, competition will save public education by destroying this cartel of fiscal abuse and incompetence. History has proven that we can trust freedom and capitalism over a unionized government monopoly. Ask the East Germans what they prefer. We have nothing to fear from capitalism in public education but lower taxes and better schools.

For more analysis: www.edexidaho.org