In his recent article in NY Times, David Leonhardt asserts:
" High school became universal in the United States in the early 20th century, when other countries viewed universal schooling as wasteful, which goes a long way toward explaining our economy's 20th-century success."
find the complete article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/26/business/economy/26leonhardt.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1296410469-7EWiR6BJpKIraI+ijbmSvg
this is a myth. we can explain America's success in a myriad of ways related to productivity gains fueled by the private sector. America's "success" (measured in rising standard of living over past 100 years) was in spite of state sponsored universal high school education, not because of it!
Entrepreneurs learned risk taking and creative problem solving despite the monopoly power the Federal government has wielded in education since the early 20th century.
The state doesn't have to sponsor investment in universal education or investments in any important sector of the economy to ensure or even to facilitate "successful" economy or society. In fact, when the government does get involved it inevitably screws things up.
Look at all of the key sectors of economy which structurally dysfunctional thanks to massive "subsidies" which supporters might call "investment": e.g. education, healthcare (tax breaks on company sponsored health insurance), infrastructure, housing (Fannie, Freddie, tax break on interest, etc), banking and finance (deposit insurance, Greenspan put, Fed bailouts), food (farm subsidies).
The "universal" state sponsored education model paved the way for public unions to hijack the system for their own selfish purposes in the 1960's. Consider the recent WSJ article by Fred Siegel published on JANUARY 25, 2011 titled:
How Public Unions Took Taxpayers Hostage: The first to seize on the political potential of government workers was New York's Mayor Robert F. Wagner. The Kennedy White House took notice of his success.
Public education is a cancer that promotes our modern idea that we need the state to solve big social problems. You can hear this erroneous assumption embedded throughout Obama's 2011 State of the Union speech.
Just because the government led a program to land a man on moon or build the atomic bomb doesn’t mean it can manage a complex system like education, energy policy or financial markets.
Landing a man on moon is a discrete project with a discrete beginning and end. Complex systems like education and healthcare have no beginning or end per se. Experts can understand all of the important variables required to land a man on the moon, but as Fredrich Hayek pointed out in his work The Fatal conceit, enlightened governmnetn bureaurcrats have an information problem with respect to managing large complex systems in society, no matter whether we are talking about health care or education or banking. You name it there is an information access and collection problem inherent in all Big Government programs that sows seeds of its own destruction.
That is not to say there is no role for the state. The state can help in a pinch. If there is a natural disaster or financial crisis the state may come in and help reduce suffering. But the logic of the intervention has to be that it is limited and temporary. the State can't make wise investment decisions and it can't manage large sectors of the economy, whether energy, health, education, housing, banking.
This doesn't mean markets are perfect.
This doesn't mean markets are perfect.
They're not. but if we try to use enlightened government policy making to improve inherent flaws in the market with government solutions, we will only make things worse.
once the state gets involved it is very hard (i would say impossible) to cut waste. that is what we've seen with Obamacare. the savings promised were enormous, but once the bill writing process got going, we got all of the increased coverage and very little of the savings. that's because there are special interests that protect "waste."
so no i don't buy David Leonhardts assertion that the government can lead smart and efficient investment decisions and cut waste at the same time in education or in any sector of the economy.
i just bought a book titled Education and the State, which was recently made available again through a re-printing by the the Mises Institute. Written and originally published in 1965, it goes to show you that even way back then it was clear to some people that state sponsored education was/is a growing cancer in our great country.
Education and the State by Edwin G. West
Description:
Can education be provided entirely by private markets? In some ways, it is a preposterous question, as this seminal important book shows. Private education was thriving and growing completely on its own. The advent of state education was superimposed upon the voluntary society, in both U.S. and Britain. The goal was NOT to provide better education but to change what and how people are taught.
That we even doubt the capacity of society to provide education is a testament to the success of the dubious political process. Today, people question the capacity of private markets solely because the state has been doing it (and doing it poorly) for so long.
Education and the State first appeared in 1965 and was immediately hailed as one of the century's most important works on education. In the thirty years that have followed, the questions this book raised concerning state-run education have grown immeasurably in urgency and intensity. Education and the State re-examines the role of government in education and challenges the fundamental statist assumption that the state is best able to provide an education for the general population.
West explores the views on education of the nineteenth-century British reformers and classical economists who argued for state education. He demonstrates that by the Foster Act of 1870 the state system of education was superimposed upon successful private efforts, thereby suppressing an emerging and increasingly robust structure of private, voluntary, and competitive education funded by families, churches, and philanthropies.
This new and expanded edition of Education and the State addresses the American situation in education, applying the lessons learned from the study of British institutions. It also broadens their application from education to the conduct of democracy as a political system.
If you care about education, this is the book you need to read and master.
Edwin G. West is Professor Emeritus of Economics at Carleton University, Ottawa.
FIND THE BOOK HERE:
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