Let the Funding Debate Begin!

Thursday, July 31, marks the day the late, great Milton Friedman would have celebrated his 96th birthday. Sadly, he passed away November 16, 2006, with his life's dream - school choice - left unfinished. In his final attempt to have us listen - an article he published in 2005 entitled School Vouchers Turn 50 But the Fight is Just Beginning, he explains that competition would do for education what it has done for the economy. He cites the example of Ma Bell. Until well into the 1980's, telephones were pretty much the same as Alexander Graham Bell had invented them in 1876. Then came competition, following a judges' ruling in 1984. We now have cell phones, email, blogs, text messaging, and there hardly appears to be a limit.

"Top-down organization works no better in the United States than it did in the Soviet Union or East Germany," he writes. "The prescription is clear. Change the organization of elementary and secondary schooling from top-down to bottom-up. Convert to a system in which parents choose the schools their children attend—or, more broadly, the educational services their children receive, whether in a brick-and-mortar school or on DVDs or over the Internet or whatever alternative the ingenuity of man can conceive. Parents would pay for educational services with whatever subsidy they receive from the government plus whatever sum they want to add out of their own resources. Producers would be free to enter or leave the industry and would compete to attract students. As in other industries, such a competitive free market would lead to improvements in quality and reductions in cost. "

Competition in education will do far more for society than we can possibly imagine. Every child is a world treasure that needs to be fed and nurtured by loving parents, without interference from government educrats who use the system to advance their own ambitions. "Under the present system, not much more than half of the money spent on government schools goes to teachers in the classroom," Friedman reports. "The rest goes to administrators, advisors, consultants and the whole paraphernalia of non-teaching bureaucrats."

Amazingly, Milton Friedman wrote his original school choice proposal, The Role of Government in Education, in 1955, when our nation's educational system was the pride of the world. Tragically, our political leaders saw fit to ignore his sage advice and have allowed our system to crumble. This is similar to having experts design an airplane, then building it ignoring the blueprints, and expecting it to fly.

We can fix this by utilizing our political influence. Our representatives in Washington, DC need to hear from us. By calling 202-224-3121, the Capital operator will connect you to your Congressman and Senators. The current political climate - highly charged and precarious - offers us a rare opportunity to leverage our votes on behalf of our children and grandchildren.

Please ask them to sponsor the Civil Rights Act for Equal Educational Opportunity. This legislation would require the states to provide equitable educational funding for children in both public and non-public schools, while respecting the liberty of schools in hiring and provision of services. Just as our free society allows us the choice of where to live, work, shop and travel, so too will the passage of this Civil Rights Act allow us to choose the school that best meets the needs of every individual child.

The New York Times, in reporting Milton Friedman's passing, described him as, "...the grandmaster of free-market economic theory in the postwar era and a prime force in the movement of nations toward less government and greater reliance on individual responsibility." If we don't do this for ourselves, no one will do it for us.

Friedman concludes his 2005 article, "Most major public policy revolutions come only after a lengthy build-up of support. But when the break comes, what had been politically impossible quickly becomes politically inevitable. So it will be with the goal of a competitive free market education system compatible with our basic values." Let's help make Milton Friedman's 96th birthday a happy one for every child in the USA.

Thanks for adding those very important details. As I mentioned earlier, I don’t teach in Watertown, so I didn’t know the details of your contract. I just know that the town in which I work is trying to work the same angle.