The Case Against Government Schools

I’ve been writing about the benefits of school choice for a long time, largely because government schools are becoming ever-more expensive while produced ever-more dismal outcomes.

But even I was surprised to see this tweet, which shows how so many parents in New York City seek alternative educational opportunities for their children.

What makes these numbers so shocking is that parents are forced to pay for government schools. So when they opt for alternatives such as private schools, they’re paying twice.

But they decide the extra cost is justified because they know government-run schools don’t do a good job (and those failures have become even more apparent because of coronavirus).

For instance, David Harsanyi indicts government schooling in an article for National Review.

“Public” schools have been a catastrophe for the United States. …State-run schools have undercut two fundamental conditions of a healthy tolerant society. First, they’ve created millions of civic illiterates who are disconnected from long-held communal values and national identity. Second, they’ve exacerbated the very inequalities that trigger the tearing apart of fissures. …No institution has fought harder to preserve segregated communities than the average teachers’ union. …Prosperous Americans already enjoy school choice — and not merely because they can afford private schools. …This entire dynamic is driven by the antiquated notion that the best way to educate kids is to throw them into the nearest government building. It’s the teachers’ unions that safeguard these fiefdoms through racketeering schemes: First they funnel taxpayer dollars to the political campaigns of allies who, when elected, return the favor by protecting union monopolies and supporting higher taxes that fund unions and ultimately political campaigns. …most poor parents, typically black or Hispanic, are compelled to send their kids to inferior schools… Joe Biden says he’ll create not a child-oriented Department of Education but a “teacher-oriented Department of Education.” By teachers, Biden means unions. …It’s likely that left-wing ideologues run your school district. They decide what your children learn. …The embedded left-wing nature of big school districts is so normalized that parents rarely say a word. …a voucher system creates opportunities for all kinds of students, not just wealthy ones.

I suppose it should explicitly stated that those opportunities would produce better results, both for taxpayers and for kids.

In an article for the American Institute for Economic Research, Gregory van Kipnis compares government schools and private schools.

Only when there is a monopoly are we denied choice. The negative consequences of that are well known… Monopolies produce goods and services at a higher price and a lower quality than would be obtained in a competitive market. That is certainly the case with public education. …society should be interested in data about the costs and outcomes of different approaches to education, namely public versus private schools, and how this data should affect our choices and behavior.

And what does the data tell us?

…currently (as of 2018), a public school education in the US costs 89% more than private education; that is, $14,653 for a public school and $7,736 for a private education. The high relative cost of public school education has persisted since the earliest period for which the data has been collected – 1965 (Chart 1a). …Private education is significantly less expensive.

Here’s the chart showing that government schools are far more expensive.

This raises a separate question: Are government schools more expensive because they’re producing better results?

Nope.

While the generally accepted knowledge is that private education produces better results than public school education, …Chart 4…shows the trends and levels in the composite ACT test results (meaning for math and reading combined) for the period 2001-2014, for private, public and homeschooled children. …The results speak for themselves – private schools test at a significantly higher level than public schools, and the gap is widening.

Here’s a chart showing the difference.

So what’s the bottom line?

Consumers of any product know they get better outcomes, as measured by quality and price, if the product is offered in competitive markets. This is true even in markets that have only limited competition. Any competition is better than none. Just as that principle is true in the markets for cars and cafes, so it is true in the market for educational services. …It is manifestly cheaper to get a private education and get a far better education in a private school. The problem holding back the growth in private education is that you have to pay twice to get it. The economics and facts support the logic of freeing parents to obtain private education and alternative public education for their children. To further facilitate this decision, parents should be given vouchers and credits equal to the cost of public school in their area, which they can freely use to fund their choice of better education in the private sector.

Amen. School choices produces better educational outcomes and saves money for taxpayers.

Hard to argue with the data (unless, of course, your motive is to appease teacher unions).