The Promise of Vouchers
The Promise of Vouchers
December 5, 2005; Page A20, WSJ
Most New Orleans schools are in ruins, as are the homes of the children who have attended them. The children are now scattered all over the country. This is a tragedy. It is also an opportunity to radically reform the educational system.
The schools that were destroyed were not serving their students well. As Chris Kinnan writes, "The New Orleans public-school system has been failing its kids for years. Fully 73 of its more than 120 schools are considered to be 'failing' according to the state's educational accountability standards." ("Vouchers for New Orleans," National Review Online, Sept. 15, 2005.)
New Orleans schools were failing for the same reason that schools are failing in other large cities, because the schools are owned and operated by the government. Government decides what is to be produced and who is to consume its products, generally assigning students to schools by their residence. The only recourse of dissatisfied parents is to change their residence or give up the government subsidy and pay for their children's schooling twice, once in taxes and once in tuition. This top-down organization works no better in the U.S. than it did in the Soviet Union or East Germany.
Rather than simply rebuild the destroyed schools, Louisiana, which has taken over the New Orleans school system, should take this opportunity to empower the consumers, i.e., the students, by providing parents with vouchers of substantial size, say three-quarters of per-pupil spending in government schools, usable only for educational expenses. Parents would then be free to choose the schooling they considered best for their children. This would introduce competition, which is missing from the present system. It would be a move to a bottom-up organization, which has proved so successful in the rest of our society....
posted by Whitney Tilson at 10:20 PM
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