Comments on: What happens when we can’t give people choice?

By: Mack Hall

Mack Hall — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 11:32:41 +0000

Yes, yes, but none of you voted in your last school board election.

By: John Conlin

John Conlin — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 18:09:23 +0000

The solution (and the problem) is the system. The K-12 public education system is a failing system. Funding and personnel are not the problem.

Why don’t we see these same issues in any other industry? There are parent trigger laws for schools but no restaurant trigger laws. The market for smart phones is incredible and there is no small group of people who must direct its development.

The only solution is to change the system. If we simply allowed parents to determine where the money is being spent we could instantly create a state-based market for K-12 education.

That’s what one schmoe from fly over country is trying to do. That’s what my temporary non-profit End the Education Plantation, Inc. is all about. http://www.EndtheEducationPlantation.org

Give it a look.

By: Michael Van Beek

Michael Van Beek — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 23:43:15 +0000

But what if the one-size fits all accountability system was run by Rich Rodriguez?

By: Jay P. Greene

Jay P. Greene — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 21:38:29 +0000

The way I like to reconcile my support for choice with my less enthusiastic support for some accountability measures in public schools (that would not apply to choice schools) is this: Firms that compete in a market have to develop internal procedures and policies for ensuring the productivity of their own staff and resources. We can think of the traditional public school system as one firm and accountability measures as the way that firm tries to manage its own productivity.

Charter schools and private schools are separate firms and can develop their own internal accountability measures. Coke has procedures for measuring and motivating the productivity of their own sales force but Pepsi does not have to adopt those same procedures.

And to anticipate the inevitable argument that it is the public’s money, so everyone has to be accountable in the same way to the public — most public expenditures do not demand this form of strict accountability to public authorities. Social security uses public funds to prevent hunger and homelessness among seniors, but no one demands that seniors prove to public authorities that the funds are being used for desirable purposes. Public support for education is similarly just money we provide to help families educate their children. We can trust that they will do this because it is in their own interest just as we trust seniors to avoid homelessness and hunger.