I was reading my last post "Never Ascribe To Evil, A Discussion of Education", and it struck me that some could draw the conclusion that vouchers would solve many of the problems I describe. The usual argument for vouchers goes as follows: By providing parents with a choice between private and public education, both systems will benefit. Students who opt for private schools will be able to flee failing public schools and get a decent education, while public schools will be forced by competition to act more like private schools, forcing them to be less rigid, accept innovation and generally improve. It sounds like a perfect solution, and as presented it is. As with most ideal solutions (eg. the FairTax¹), the devil is in the details.

Before we deal with the many technical shortcomings, let me address one argument, or supposed argument, for the voucher solution, which I find more troubling than most. That is the argument made by some that it is a good thing that the vouchers will be for an amount less than the amount normally spent per student in public schools. According to these "advocates" this will make the solution acceptable to the NEA and public school advocates, as it means that the public schools will make money even when students flee to private schools, as they will make money and still not have to educate the student.

Let me just point out the two biggest flaws with this theory. First, in the extreme, it could result in a public schools system with no students, no schools, but with an extensive administration still supported by tax revenues. Does that make sense to anyone? Paying administrators not to educate students? Second, by making public schools receive money form students who flee, it removes the market pressures, and encourages WORSE public schools. After all, they get more money for students who stay, but also incur costs. Students who flee are pure profit. So it encourages public schools to drive off as many students as possible, hardly an incentive for improvement.

No, whether it will meet with NEA approval, or approval of the entrenched education bureaucracy, for vouchers to produce any of the nominal improvements, the amount of the voucher has to be equal to the money spent per student in public education, and the money has to come out of the funds spent on public education. To do anything else is to pit a subsidized enterprise against a private venture, and that will hardly produce market driven improvements. Unless the public schools lose money when a student opts out, there will be none of the pseudo-market forces upon which voucher advocates rely.

So, if we enact such a system, basically bringing market forces to a public venture, then why do I oppose it? Is it not better to allow the market to control rather than the government? Isn't that what I have been advocating in every post from  "The Limits of Technocracy" to "Greed Versus Evil"? So why would I be against this solution?

And my answer is that the question answers itself. While introducing competition may seem to bring market forces to bear, it is no more a market solution than chess is war. Chess may be created to emulate war, and this solution may emulate market forces, but neither is what it mimics. Because the government forces each tax payer to contribute to education and forces a large, fixed pool of money to be spent, there is no real market force in play, just competition for government largesse, controlled by the choices of parents. And as a result, the solution will not be a market outcome, but simply a struggle for government handouts. And as with all pseudo-market solutions, the introduction of mechanisms meant to mimic the market will end up producing even worse results².

So, let us see what would happen under this pseudo-market system³.

The government has a large pot of money, with the money tied to each student. As the funds are allocated based on the needs of the public schools, in terms of profits, the public schools will see the retention or loss of each student as a matter of indifference, as they are not a for-profit enterprise. On the other hand, as they have massive bureaucracies supported by these students, the administration itself will want to retain students to keep their jobs. However, as a large part of the job that bureaucracy does is to manage the system in such a way that make sit unappealing to parents, it is questionable whether the bureaucracy could both preserve itself and improve the schools. Most likely public schools will initiate a handful of "reforms", probably a few dozen more magnet and charter schools, but other than that simply accept the inevitable, and scale back to a slightly smaller administration run in mostly the same manner as before⁴. And thanks to both apathetic parents, and those with some egalitarian belief in public schools, it is likely a slightly smaller public schools system will persist.

And there will be ways the state can still try to encourage public education. For example, by increasing the bureaucratic hoops through which parents need to leap to obtain vouchers. The harder vouchers are to obtain,t he more parents will decide it is not worth the effort, and the more the system will favor the public schools. But, as we are postulating a pro-voucher environment, we can ignore that for now, and assume there is no trouble in obtaining a voucher, so while the public schools will persist, they will be reduced.

And what of the private schools? Well, if we assume a total pseudo-free market system, one in which vouchers are handed out no questions asked, and redeemed from any schools which turns them in, there will clearly be issues. And, interestingly enough, the issues largely mirror those I found with student loans in "The State Versus Universities" and "When Help Hurts", though with some other unique twists specific to this situation.

First, and foremost, there will be fraud, a lot of fraud. Just as there are inner city shops which sell the same bag of potato chips for $100 in food stamps (with $30 change)⁵, there will be any number of schools which find ways to refund parents 1/3 of the voucher and cut their kids loose without any education at all, and there will be parents who will take them up on the offer. And, while this is clearly fraudulent, and likely to be prosecuted when discovered, there are also likely to be schools which, though meeting the bare minimum for education, provide an education even worse than the public schools, but through appealing to parents one way or another (keeping kids off their hands longer, providing transportation, whatever), will draw in a lot of students to puff up profits.

And that is the primary problem with the voucher system. It is not a free market, where the amount of money entering the system depends on the quality of goods offered, but simply a means of distributing a fixed pot of government money. In a free market those parents who will distribute part of the money were unlikely to spend on education at all, while those likely to spend a lot on education will distribute no more than those totally apathetic. (Unless they also spend out of pocket.)  All of which means money will be distributed based, not entirely on market competition, but partly on the basis of parents who care about other factors⁶. All of which means that the supposed "market forces" will not all be pushing in the direction of education.

However, I doubt that such a system would last long, if it would ever exist. Far more likely any voucher system would establish up front some sort of agency which would determine which schools would be eligible for reimbursement. Rather than allowing schools to woo parents through offering explicit kickbacks or non-educational incentives, it is likely that the state would step in and either deputize certain accrediting agencies, or , more likely, create a process for certifying schools as eligible to receive voucher payments.

And that is where my second objection arises. Because it would give the government some say over private schools.

To be fair, the government has the chance to exercise such power even today. As home schoolers know, the government in many states has final say over what it will and will not accept as "valid education" (a point I dispute in "Reforming Education"), but it has been reticent to exercise such power for fear of backlash from parent-voters. From time to time it may use such power to close down schools run by "cults" or other unpopular insular communities, but by and large the state has been willing to accept the credentials of private accrediting agencies with regard to private schools, both secular and religious.

But will that still apply when the government is not just tolerating the existence of private schools, but actually footing the bill? We have already heard of those objecting to using vouchers to fund religious schools, do you think they will be more quiet when vouchers are a reality? In fact, it won't just be parents and activist, but the courts could jump in and decide that the first amendment disallows public funds supporting religious schools. Which could clearly be detrimental to religious schools.

Right now, religious schools do pretty well. Yes, they have to compete with free public schools, but they also compete with private schools. And, as religious schools tend to be (though not always) less expensive, they are seen as the lower cost private alternative. However, how would they do in a world where private schools tuitions were subsidized in whole or part by government vouchers? If religious schools were ineligible for such vouchers it would likely mean a serious decline in enrollment. It probably would not kill off religious schools, but there would clearly be a drop in the number of students and likely a decline in the total number of schools.

But whether or not religious schools could receive vouchers, there are bigger issues that come with government oversight. Though advocates will deny it, once the government funds education, the government has the ability to control content⁷. Nor is that too far fetched. After all, we have said the government would need to exercise some sort of controls to ensure fraud did not take place, and how would it exercise that control? By reviewing the schools, seeing what is taught, and deciding if the school is or is not a valid recipient of government funds.

Well, what if they decide that sex education is a required subject for children of certain ages? And that schools that omit that topic are not real schools? And what if they farther decide that to qualify as sex education specific topics must be included? Or how about science? What if they decree that evolution is a required subject in science? What if they decide that intelligent design or creation are not valid subjects if presented as science? I could go on, but you can see how "accrediting" could be used as a tool to control curriculum.

Nor would it have to be explicit. Or even an official policy. A single bureaucrat with a particular agenda could hijack the process to push his or her own dogma. We have all heard stories about minor officials using their office to enact their own beliefs. How much easier is it to do so when deciding nebulous questions such as what does or does not constitute legitimate education? But, once the government is granted such power, with massive amounts of money to back it up, that single bureaucrat could gain a lot of power very quickly.

Which brings me to the likely offshoot of this whole program. If the government does institute some sort of nationwide voucher system the most likely outcome will be the reduction of our two tiered system to a three tiered system. Many private schools will jump at the chance to receive vouchers, and just as quickly, some will jump out once they realize the amount fo autonomy they will surrender and the bureaucratic headaches they will suffer. Ont he other hand, some people looking for a quick buck will likely establish bare bones "private academies" to rake in government money by providing the minimum education acceptable, which they will be able to do by simply mimicking public education without the massive bureaucratic overheads and union rules. We will then end up with three layers of education. Public schools, now the dumping ground for kids no one wants, voucher schools, basically serving the purpose now served by public schools, though maybe a little better, at least for a time, and non-voucher schools, performing the functions now performed by private schools.

And that is the best possible outcome. The worst would be if all private schools, or most, accepted vouchers. As a result, that would probably destroy the non-voucher schools, destroying the all important safety valve of schools outside of the governments oversight. And that would mean, not an escape from failing public schools for students, but simply a means of spreading the misery of public education a bit more broadly, taking the lucky few who now have private education and forcing them into a pseudo-government schools system, taking away the hope of escape for a few, and instead providing false hope for many, with all suffering equally.

Then again, spreading the suffering around seems to be the doctrine of many government programs, so perhaps that outcome may not be so undesirable for some.

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1.  I have written so much on this topic I won't list all the links here. Instead I will say that a few of my arguments have been answered by FairTax advocates, but my overall arguments, that it puts everyone on welfare, that it creates confusing new/used and retail/wholesale distinctions, that it will not be as cheap as some think and will require a new bureaucracy that advocates ignore, have never been answered. You can see a list of my articles on the topic in the postscript to "An Interesting Analogy". Of particular interest, given recent events, is the post "The Runaway Stagecoach", which argues that the "crisis mentality" being used to push the FairTax is intended to discourage thoughtful analysis and create a false dichotomy arguing it is "the FairTax or the current system", ignoring any possible alternative plans. After the "emergency" stimulus bill, the "crisis" passage of cap and trade, and the "critical need" for medical reform, is anyone really buying the argument that any law "must be passed now to avert disaster"?

2. From Lenin's "New Economic Plan" to Hitler's decisions to leave shops in the hands of betriebsfuehrern, authoritarians have often theorized that emulating the market will introduce competitive forces and improve their absolutist systems. None have ever done more than put a market window dressing on totalitarianism, but that has not stopped theorist after theorist from imagining that an absolutist system with market-like games superimposed will somehow "work".

3. Some will point to the system in various other nations, where money is "tied' to each student, and will argue that the results show the system "works". This reminds me of the arguments in the 1980's about how socialism "worked" in Sweden. Of course, as we know in retrospect, Sweden was less than pleased with their socialist system, even when backed with north sea oil revenues. And even in those nations where money follows students, the argument that it "works" tells us little, as we are looking at an entirely different environment, with different pressures, and all we know is that it produces slightly better results than we have here under a fully defective system. Similar arguments are often used to show how Britain "proves" gun control works. Ignoring differences in sentencing, urbanization, societal pressures that encourage violence or discourage crime, and so on, it is impossible to compare two disparate systems.  I would be remiss if I eventually did not address such claims, but at the moment I am more swayed by simple logic than claims of a system "working". I will do my best to find the arguments offered for vouchers working in other nations and look at them in detail in the future, but for now I cannot fairly address them, though I remain skeptical that they are ideal, imagining they "work" only in the sense of being better than what we have.

4. Schools will also likely lobby to eliminate vouchers in an effort to preserve themselves, a shtye have been doing all along, but as my situation here assumes a victory for the voucher side, I am ignoring that.

5. I know this is illegal, and on paper the transaction for $100 of food, not for that single bag of chips, I can attest to having seen any number of shops which carry on tens of thousands of dollars of food stamp business without enough food to make one meal, though a lot of them had liquor, cigarettes and Keno machines. (Thanks to both being a former social services worker and once having lived in southwest Baltimore.)  When I worked at social services it was a running joke that about half of our food stamp cases "lost" their card the same day benefits were issued, but didn't get it replaced until a few days before the next issue. Medical benefit cards got "lost" too, but not as regularly as food stamps.

6. Yes, in a free market parents may not all value education, and some may pay schools just to keep their kids longer. However, they will be spending their own money, not mine, so I won't care. It is because these parents will be spending public funds that this becomes an issue. Which is why I argue in "Big Government Creates New Problems" that making anything publicly funded is a bad idea, as it creates public concerns where previously there were none.

7. No, the government has not exercised control over similarly funded university education, but that is not a real analogy. Student loans were always seen as just that, loans. Public education has been the purview of government for a long time. If it starts funding private education, it seems very likely it would see the schools which took its dime as being an extension of the "education system" and require of them certain content.

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POSTSCRIPT

By the way, just to make it perfectly clear, I support neither creationist nor Intelligent Design argument. (See "Some Thoughts On Arguments For Intelligent Design".) I do think sex education is probably something best left to parents, but I also understand other parents may disagree. And that is my point. I believe parents have very right to have education reflect their beliefs.And once you take their money to finance education you remove any choice they may have had. And, as I argue above, vouchers do not correct that, but just spread the problem to the private schools.

POSTSCRIPT II

In case anyone asks, "if vouchers are not the market solution then what is?" I have an answer. Get the government out of eduction. As I argued over and over, anything the state can do, so can private enterprise, and I think in something as important as education, private initiative and private charity will be more than sufficient. I know many disagree, but you may want to read my argument in "Private Charity" and "Private Charity Take Two". You may also find some relevant arguments (though on other topics) in "Clarification of My Argument for a Free Market in Medicine", "Life Is Not Fair - And Trying To Make It So Makes Things Worse" and "Liberalism's False Dichotomy ".

POSTSCRIPT III

I didn't even bother mentioning it here, as it would only be a distraction, but if education is a proper matter for government at all, it is certainly one which should be handled locally. On that basis alone I would oppose any national imposition of vouchers. I know forcing vouchers nationwide is often seen as a "conservative" position, but I cannot abandon my commitment to federalism that easily, even if some think the cause is a just one. Of course, as I believe the government should be out of education entirely, I would rather see no policy at all, but if there must be government education, I would prefer vouchers be instituted locally, so we can see how they compare to other plans. A nationally imposed voucher system would be blamed for any ills, whether it caused them or not, better to have it in some locales to allow us to compare results. That is, if we must have government involved in education at all.