Aug 2, 2004
One small step for education, one giant leap . . .
For my sins I was traveling again this past weekend, and my hotel gave me a copy of my favorite newspaper to mock, USA Today. Lo and behold, however, on the front page—right there next to one of their pretty polychromatic diagrams—was a story of actual interest. Under the title “To Play Sports, Many U. S. Students Must Pay,” the paper reported indeed what I take to be the best educational news since the recalcitrant success of school voucher programs.
Apparently some school districts are so strapped for cash that they are asking—hold on to your seat now—the people who use certain services to actually pay for the services themselves. This is a bold and new idea to the educational establishment, and for many of the people involved in public schooling, including in particular the students who attend such schools and their parents, the idea is a dangerous one too. For what might it lead to? Requiring people who go to public schools to pay their whole bill? Why, that flies in the face of the venerable American tradition of “free” schooling for all!
Okay, I’ll stop with the sarcasm. The fees that students are being asked to pay by the few but increasing number of school districts is for extracurricular activities like sports and clubs, and the fees themselves range up to several hundred dollars.
Contrary to what the students, parents, teachers, and administrators interviewed unanimously believe, I see this as a great step in the right direction—for two principal reasons. First, it helps to reconnect freedom and responsibility. That is, by connecting, even in this partial way, the decisions people make (like whether to give their kids more schooling or enrol them in sports, clubs, etc.) to the consequences of those decisions (like the costs involved), it will be an incentive for people to investigate what they are actually getting for their money. And any scrutiny brought to bear on the scandalously profligate primary and secondary education industry in this country can only be to the good.
Second, it begins, again even in an admittedly small way, to level the competitive playing field between government schools and private schools. People who send their children to private schools (like me) have to pay for schooling twice: once for the government schools their children do not attend, and then again for the private schools their children do attend. People without children also are made to pay for the government schools regardless of the fact. I consider both of those outright injustices. But purely on consequentialist grounds the subsidy to government schools gives them an enormous competitive price advantage over private schools. Despite the latter’s general superiority in quality, many parents thus choose nevertheless to send their children to the government schools. Charging parents for their children’s participation in government school activities is one small step towards leveling the marketplace competition for students, bringing a much-needed measure of discipline to the government schooling establishment.
Selective implementation of user fees does not by any means solve all the problems with government schooling in America, but I believe it is a step in the right direction, and a hopeful sign for the future.
Apparently some school districts are so strapped for cash that they are asking—hold on to your seat now—the people who use certain services to actually pay for the services themselves. This is a bold and new idea to the educational establishment, and for many of the people involved in public schooling, including in particular the students who attend such schools and their parents, the idea is a dangerous one too. For what might it lead to? Requiring people who go to public schools to pay their whole bill? Why, that flies in the face of the venerable American tradition of “free” schooling for all!
Okay, I’ll stop with the sarcasm. The fees that students are being asked to pay by the few but increasing number of school districts is for extracurricular activities like sports and clubs, and the fees themselves range up to several hundred dollars.
Contrary to what the students, parents, teachers, and administrators interviewed unanimously believe, I see this as a great step in the right direction—for two principal reasons. First, it helps to reconnect freedom and responsibility. That is, by connecting, even in this partial way, the decisions people make (like whether to give their kids more schooling or enrol them in sports, clubs, etc.) to the consequences of those decisions (like the costs involved), it will be an incentive for people to investigate what they are actually getting for their money. And any scrutiny brought to bear on the scandalously profligate primary and secondary education industry in this country can only be to the good.
Second, it begins, again even in an admittedly small way, to level the competitive playing field between government schools and private schools. People who send their children to private schools (like me) have to pay for schooling twice: once for the government schools their children do not attend, and then again for the private schools their children do attend. People without children also are made to pay for the government schools regardless of the fact. I consider both of those outright injustices. But purely on consequentialist grounds the subsidy to government schools gives them an enormous competitive price advantage over private schools. Despite the latter’s general superiority in quality, many parents thus choose nevertheless to send their children to the government schools. Charging parents for their children’s participation in government school activities is one small step towards leveling the marketplace competition for students, bringing a much-needed measure of discipline to the government schooling establishment.
Selective implementation of user fees does not by any means solve all the problems with government schooling in America, but I believe it is a step in the right direction, and a hopeful sign for the future.