Education

Set the Prisoners Free

by Scott McPherson December 1, 2007

School is the cheapest police. — Horrace Mann, first secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education The immense edifice of teacher instruction and schooling in general rests on the shaky hypothesis that expert intervention in childhood produces better people than might otherwise occur. I’ve come to doubt that. — John Taylor Gatto, The Underground History of American Education In criminal-justice ...

Vouchers or School Choice?

by Sheldon Richman November 12, 2007

The voters of Utah said no to school vouchers on Tuesday. More than 60 percent of voters refused to ratify a bill passed earlier by the state legislature. It would have provided taxpayer-funded vouchers for each government-school student, ranging from $500 to $3,000, depending on family income. Students currently in ...

Why Markets Are Dreaded

by Tibor R. Machan April 27, 2007

In one of those vapid, in-house disputes often published in The New York Review of Books’s letters-to-the-editor sections, we can read about a disagreement among educational experts under the heading “Scandals in Higher Education: An Exchange” (4/26/07). Well, not much of a disagreement because none of the participants gives ...

Democracy and Government Schools

by Sheldon Richman January 1, 2007

Let’s be frank. We advocates of a completely free market in education are making little progress. I think I know why. Before I get to that, let’s look at where we are. Roughly 90 percent of American children attend government schools. That share has not changed substantially in the last 20 ...

The Education Debate We’re Not Having

by Scott McPherson November 15, 2006

My adopted state of New Hampshire may be at a crossroads. The state supreme court has commanded the legislature to find a new way of funding public schools by next summer, or else the justices will impose a solution of their own. Many people here fear that a directive from ...

The “Value” of Public Schooling

by Jacob G. Hornberger November 1, 2006

There are two major values of public schooling, from the perspective of government officials. One, this institution provides the means by which government officials can slowly but surely, over a period of 12 years, mold the mindsets of children into one of conformity and obedience to authority. Second, public ...

Public Schools Have Flunked Out

by James Ervin Norwood June 1, 2006

Public schools are brain dead and on life support; so let’s pull the plug on them, give them a decent funeral, and let better alternatives take root and flourish. Education is what we must save and regenerate, not an obsolete proven flop that has been in a persistent counterproductive condition for decades. The time has come to slaughter a sacred ...

It Takes Government to Create a Reading Crisis

by Sheldon Richman January 11, 2006

When Horace Mann and his colleagues launched the public-school movement some 175 years ago, they made extravagant promises. Turn the education of children over to enlightened altruistic experts working under government auspices, they said, and illiteracy, vice, and crime will become things of the past. I’m not kidding. Most people don’t know ...

School-Choice Flaws

by Sheldon Richman January 6, 2006

Some advocates of what is euphemistically called “school choice” argue that their reform would be a crucial step along the road to the separation of school and state. Some of us have dissented. Knowing how government works, we’ve had a hunch that vouchers and tuition tax credits would most likely ...

The Separation of Education and State

by Jacob G. Hornberger January 1, 2006

Americans, like most people around the world, have become so accustomed to the role that government plays in educating children that the idea of separating education from the state usually comes as a complete shock to them. While everyone is aware of the ever-growing problems associated with public schooling, the ...

Who Made the State the Ultimate Parent?

by Sheldon Richman January 1, 2006

When an opponent declares, “I will not come over to your side,” I calmly say, “Your child belongs to us already.” — Adolf Hitler If you believe that parents have a fundamental, natural right (recognized in the Constitution) to raise ...

Crippling Competition, Part 2

by Scott McPherson January 1, 2006

Part 1 | Part 2 Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself; not what he has or hasn’t done for others. There is no substitute for personal dignity. There is no standard of personal dignity except independence. —Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead A truly free society ...