footnote on compulsory education
Topics: Education
12 May 1995
From: "DG Ervan Darnell"
Much of the debate about education (on this side of the fence) stems from
the assumption that it must be compulsory. If the government forces
children to attend school, then it must necessarily define what a school is,
i.e. set standards. Once it is in the business of setting standards, the
rest of the ugly baggage tends to come with it. The voucher debate focuses
this issue. What about the First Amendment and religious schools? What
must be taught, basic requirement in math and English, basic requirements in
PCness? What cannot be taught? For instance, the failed California
proposition banned any school from teaching (in favor of) racism, who knows
what that would mean in practice.
Like many things, a little bit of government intervention begs for more and
the right answer is zero (*). As support for this, I offer the following
quote from Milton Friedman (6/95 Reason):
I would like to see the government out of the education business
entirely. In that area, I have become more extreme, not because of any
change of philosophy, but because of a change in my knowledge of the
factual situation and history.
I used to argue that I could justify compulsory schooling on the ground
of external effects. But then I discovered from work that E. G. West
and others did, that before compulsory schooling something over 90
percent of people got schooled. The big distinction you have to make is
between marginal benefit and average benefit. The marginal benefit from
having 91 percent of people in school rather than 90 percent does not
justify making it compulsory. But if in the absence of compulsory
education, only 50 percent would be literate, then I can regard it as
appropriate.
To amplify on Friedman's comment of marginal benefit, that extra 1% (or
whatever) that gets schooling is not an average person, i.e. the benefit
would not be 1/90, but something much lower as the 1% extra is the 1% of
children that would profit the least from education and do the most to
interfere with the education of the 90%. And, of course, there is the big
question of how much quality must be lowered for everyone because of the
government intervention necessary to lower the truancy rate. I cannot find
the exact quote now, but in "Free To Choose", Friedman said something to the
effect of 'the schools are hardly any more than holding prisons for children
until the unions let them have jobs'.
(*)
I have addressed the 'But what about the poor' argument before, but I'll
recap here. Since schools are paid out of local property taxes, the poor
already pay for schools for their children. Totally private schools would
also be much cheaper (50% seems to be the typical figure) so they would be
better off. Even if not, the idea of schooling as a gift from parent to
child rather than an investment in the person is a broken economic model
(though a perfectly reasonably personal view). There is investment money
for education proportional to the value that it produces, even if the
parents are bankrupt. This can be realized as explicit loans or a
percentage of future wages. If none of that satisfies you, lower taxes (or
use a negative income tax) on a per capita (not per earner) basis. This
puts the money back in the hands of the parents and neatly avoids First
Amendment and regulatory issues (e.g. so far no one has said that the EIC
refund cannot be donated to a church [though the purist in me believes that
freedom of religion implies libertaria]).
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