Heartily agree - but harder to do politically than, say, welfare reform

Reader comment on: Peterson on School Competition

Submitted by Mark Michael (United States), Aug 23, 2016 12:44

When Uncle Miltie (Friedman) proposed school vouchers as a pragmatic way to begin moving back towards a more private sector form of K-12 education in 1955, I doubt free-market types expected it would take this long for school choice to capture the small segment of the K-12 education "market" it has today. Rather discouraging, to say the least. (At least some progress has been made!)

A few (philosophical) thoughts on the political system. It actually is finely-tuned to voters, campaign funders - societal "movers & shakers" than one may realize. The clout of the teachers' unions, educational establishment on the D Party is well-known. Hence, their relentless foot-dragging on useful reforms.

Think about the last 50 years since the federalization of public welfare for the poor - JFK's/LBJ's signature Great Society anti-poverty programs. Those 50 years have made it abundantly clear that we need to completely eliminate the federal role in welfare for the poor. Transition it to the 50 states, including all of its funding. They, in turn, need to begin transitioning it back to private charities that have known how to aid the poor for centuries - the Salvation Army, National Catholic Charities, Lutheran Social Services, Jewish charities, et al.

Another (obvious) example. Federal and state job training programs. They are universally useless - train almost no recipients for truly available jobs. Why? The workers in those fields with jobs don't want more competition. It'll lower their wages. They vote. The politicians at some level of consciousness, understand that. So the "path of least resistance" is to really just "warehouse" those unemployed workers in those job training classes. (Well - if they teach them social skills, promptness, civilized behaviors, that, at least is useful!)

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