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Gaffer Variety:
Education Nonsense 033:
By Willie Gaffer:
March 27, 2006:
Over and over again from all quarters I hear crazy notions about education. No hair brained solution is so bizarre that it will not have a plethora of advocates. One such is the wishful thinking notion that school vouchers will solve our educational problems. A variety of poorly reasoned arguments are put forth to support this nonsense. One of the most outspoken advocates is John Stossel.
One of his arguments is that schools will improve if they have competition. This is the old time worn notion that was used to justify the rules that gave birth to the Enron debacle. Competition is good, they say. The truth is, sometimes competition helps, sometimes it does not. Some folks will argue that breaking up the ATT monopoly, a form of imposed competition, helped consumers. I cannot argue with that. I can argue about the morality of imposing it.
Sometimes, however competition does not help at all. A favorite example cited by John Stossel is the US Postoffice. He says competition from outfits like FedEx caused the postal service to improve. That is simply not true. The service from the US Postoffice has continued to degenerate even as their volume of business decreases and they respond by raising rates. People are not switching to P O Boxes because it is less expensive. It's not. We are switching because it's the only way we have a chance of getting our mail delivered. Even then, it is not a sure thing. The mail still often gets misdirected.
It is a rare week when I do not find at least one piece of mail in my box that is addressed to someone else with a different box number. I always take these back to the front desk. Not everyone is that kind. My mail just disappears. This is not just me complaining. In conversation after conversation and essay after essay I have discovered people who have given up on the postoffice. They are finding other solutions. The truth is the US Postal Service has failed and competition did not improve a thing.
This whole ridiculous voucher argument is based on the premise that our public schools are under a government run monopoly. Again, that is simply not true. Our public schools are one of the few institutions that are not directly controlled by the government. I don't know how it is where Stossel lives, but in Michigan the local schools are controlled by a local school board elected by the local people. If the schools are out of control, it is only because the voters have abdicated their responsibility. These are the same people Stossel wants to give vouchers to.
By law, school board meetings are open meetings and the public has a right to attend. In fact, the parents have a duty to attend, but they do not. So, the school board is usually an in clique of regulars who run the show their way. If the voters wanted to influence how the schools are run, they could do so. They are too lazy or too busy to be bothered with their kids education. I suspect these same folks are not too busy for their weekly bowling league or nightly television addictions.
How could anyone believe that people who avoid participation would be able to make good educational choices fo their kids? They will not! If they could make good choices, we would have much better government than we do. Take a look at Lansing and Washington to see what kind of choices people make. If they could make good choices their school boards would be good people who wanted to do a good job. If they could make good choices they would be involved. That is the real problem. If education is failing it is because the people who should be are not involved. Most of them don't know the names of their school board members let alone what they are doing. Most of them do not even know what their kids are doing in school. Most of them are too dumb to understand even if their kids explained it to them.
The only way to make our public institutions work, be it schools or township governments, is for the citizens to step up. When the citizens attend public meetings and participate the institutions can be forced to work. When the private citizen gets off his lazy butt and takes an interest, he can make the public servants accountable. When the kid's education becomes more important that his father's hunting trip, the kid will have a chance. So long as the parents do not participate, no gimmick will help, be it vouchers, charter schools, or some other nonsense. When the parents begin to participate, no gimmicks will be necessary.
Education is a community affair. Until we see it that way,
nothing will change. A community is people. It is not a place
or a building or an idea. A community is people. Education is
the responsibility of every citizen in the community. Community
implies participation. Without participation there is no community.
That is the situation we currently have. Instead of looking for
another magical gimmick, we need to look at what our responsibility
is.
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