SO WHAT IS THE ANSWER?

2 PARAGRAPHS 4 LIBERTY: 451

Please ask yourself, what is THE long-term answer for combatting most cases of poverty, crime, race, lack of motivation and other fundamental problem issues for many people in our country? Obviously, there cannot be and is not a universal answer to a broad question like that for everyone because there are many individual issues like poor parenting, mental illness, and unreasonable biases that have some harmful effects. But to a large degree THE long-term answer is equal access to an excellent, well-rounded and effective education for all of our people. And how can this be obtained? School Choice, which means that all parents will be empowered to choose where and how the government’s money will be spent for the education of their children from K through 12.

I first was confronted with this issue back in 1993 when I was leading a forum at Stanford University’s Hoover Institute on the failure of our nation’s policy of Drug Prohibition. During a recess I was listening and became concerned when Dr. Milton Friedman – one of my true heroes – began talking about School Choice. So I said to him: “Dr. Friedman, I received a good education in our public schools, and I don’t want to do anything to harm them.” Whereupon he said: “Jim, let me ask you two questions. The first is that if you were the parent of a high school-age child, what country in the world would you want your child to be in to get the best education he or she could?” I responded: “Well, I’m not sure, but probably not the United States of America.” He said that he agreed with me. Then his second question was: “If you were parent of a college-age child, what country would you want your child to be in to get that best college education he or she could get?” To that I responded: “Well, that probably would be the United States,” to which he said he also agreed. And what was the difference? Because for college the parents can choose where their educational money will be spent, but for high school they cannot (unless they are wealthy enough to send their child to a private school but, obviously, more than a majority of parents cannot afford to do that). So without School Choice the public schools have no financial incentives to provide their students with a quality education, proving once again that Incentives Matter! But if all parents could remove their children from a public school if it was not performing, that school would lose the government money for that child. And that means that the schools would be forced to compete for that money by getting better, plus good teachers could be more highly paid, which would incentivize teachers to do a better job. And with those explanations I was sold on School Choice.

So yes, many will say, that is truly important, but how is it THE answer to most of society’s problems? Well, I believe that the biggest unnecessary catastrophe in our country for the last several decades has been that so many public schools have failed to provide our children with a quality education, mostly in the lower economic areas. And if children do not see a future for themselves depression, crime, despair, and a sense of victimization quickly follow. But if children get a good education they will mostly see the benefits that will come to them by working hard and being successful regardless of their racial, ethnic or financially-humble backgrounds. And finally, please ask yourself, who is in a better position to see if a child will excel in the arts, sciences or other professions, or even with fundamental job skills learned from trade schools, their parents or the government? Of course, I have already acknowledged that some parents are better than others. But even if some parents are not that well attuned to their child’s best interests, frequently their children’s friends will be influential in leading them to better schools. And, regardless, better and more competitive schools will lead young people to emphasize their potentials instead of their “victimizations” which, as a famous bard was quoted as saying, is “devoutly to be wished.”

(Quote for the week from Joshua Wooden, who was Coach Johnny Wooden’s father: “Johnny, don’t try to be better than somebody else, but never cease trying to be the best you can be. You have control over that, but over the other you don’t.”)