During WWII my father was the manager of a shoe factory in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Private factories did not make shoes, the government manufactured shoes. If jFp lived in the Soviet Union back then, he would argue that without the government, people would walk around barefoot; that if it weren't for the government subsidizing shoes no one would be able to afford a pair. Obviously we know that is not only patently false but the reverse is true. Most of the Soviet population lived with a standard of living indirectly proportional to government programs, subsidies, grants, handouts, etc. As the number of government projects increased, the standard of living decreased.

We do not have government-run shoe factories in America, yet even our poor ghetto youths sport $150.00 sneakers. Had we had a G.I. Bill to help people buy shoes, only those getting government handouts or the very rich would have been able to buy them.

The truth is, if we didn't have public schools, poor people would be able to send their children to private schools. For example, in Washington D.C. the annual cost per student in a public school is about $25,000 per year (2). Do you know what it costs for the most elite private school in the D.C. area? $15,000 annually. That's right, ten grand cheaper. In addition, there are less elite but quite competent private schools (which are so much better than any public school) have costs as low as $8,000 per student per year. Instead of maintaining a huge, bloated bureaucracy the district could save anywhere from $490 million a year to as much as $840 million a year on its 49,422 students if it simply scrapped the public system and paid the private schools directly.

But if it didn't tax everyone to death to pay for the bloated cost of public schools, everyone could afford provate schools just as everyone can afford private shoes.

The same would apply to public school systems in all the states. Without the high taxes needed to fund the public school system which normally throttle business expansion and innovation, there would be more jobs. With more jobs there would be more money for individuals to spend on their own for private education. In some states, most of the taxes for education fall on property owners and with a lower tax burden these private individuals could have more money to spend in the economy increasing business expansion and producing more jobs. And more jobs directly increases the standard of living.

Just as the shoe example, if the government never got involved in public schools, even the poorest ghetto youth would be attending a private school with competent teachers, proper class size, decent class rooms, etc.

My dear jFp forgets that there is a huge economic pie. If private people divide up that pie, as in the private shoe industry in the US, then everyone gets a share of the pie and shoes are cheap enough that everyone, all God's children, got shoes. But when the government runs the shoe business, bribes and kickbacks take a cut out of the pie; then the government sets up a bureaucracy to help run the shoe system, another slice is taken out of the pie; unions jack up the price of making shoes - another slice; leather and equipment and supplies are purchased without regard to efficient buying techniques - another slice. By the time the government finishes the cost to buy a pair of shoes is in the thousands.

Similarly when the government runs schools the cost to teach a student is 3 times higher than a private firm would charge. The government points to the inflated price and says, "See, without government help, could you afford to pay $25,000 to have your child educated?" In truth, without public schools, without the government getting involved, there would be private schools that could teach any child for less than $4,000 a year and far better than any public school.

Where would poor people get $4 grand? First off, employers who did not have onerous taxes (America has the highest corporate tax rate in the world next to Japan) could afford to pay higher wages. Individuals that were not taxed to death (as in New Jersey property taxes), would have more than enough money to send their children to private schools. Landlords who save $4,000 a year in property taxes per tenant could easily lower the rents they charge by an equal amount, allowing their tenants to have money on their own to send their children to private schools.

If the government ran shoes, then sneakers would cost $1500 a pair, shoelaces would cost $100, and everyone would be screaming that we need the government to give out free shoes because who can afford those prices? Then higher taxes would be levied to help pay for all those shoes and businesses would suffer, individuals would have less spending money and the standard of living would decrease and make it appear as if, without the government handing out free shoes, we'd all be wearing old, worn out shoes (excluding the rich).

But since no child in America goes around barefoot (unless he wants to) the lesson to be learned is that we do not need public schools any more than we need public shoes. Anything we need can be satisfied by private enterprise if only the government would kindly mind its own business.

ENDNOTES

(1):

jFp, Reader Comment

I’d like to once again congratulate you on pointing out that government is at the root of most of our difficulties. I know that our rivers would be cleaner and our air purer without their occasional meddling. My family has been here in this land before the government came into being and has fought in every conflict/war since. We were doing ok before they took over and are not impressed with some of the hand outs since.

Things like the GI Bill made my father and I go to college which led to middle class jobs and the same Bill provided a means to buy homes. We would have been much better off without those. The government also provided schools to teach us things we didn’t need to know and brainwash us as youths. Now as a result my own children are caught up in this same corrupt system and forced to study medicine and law. I can’t tell you how angry it makes me that former President Eisenhower butchered the landscape by building coast to coast interstate highways over the beautiful natural mud roads.

And don’t even get me started on fluoride, teeth are overrated. I think you never lived beyond New York so you may not be aware of the horrors of the TVA. Controlling floods and forcing electricity on everyone in the south only pushes addictive reliance on the unsuspecting. Damn [sic] building and job creation is really meant to create cities and tax payers which we all know we need fewer of.

It’s too bad everyone isn’t more like you and your father. People that were forced into this ignorant corrupt country after WW2 and made to make a living on trading gold, silver, and other terrible things like jewels. Thank gods there were private schools available to people like you that really deserve being educated. Spreading the wealth and resources only weakens us all by building up an undeserving middle class. This country would be much better off with just a few clever rich people worrying about the burdens of wealth. It’s too bad you have only been here “tens of years”. We could have used your help in the beginning/good old days when it was every man for himself.

(2):

The Washington Post, The Real Cost Of Public Schools

For the current school year, the local operating budget is $831 million, including relevant expenses such as the teacher retirement fund. The capital budget is $218 million. The District receives about $85.5 million in federal funding. And the D.C. Council contributes an extra $81 million. Divide all that by the 49,422 students enrolled (for the 2007-08 year) and you end up with about $24,600 per child.

For comparison, total per pupil spending at D.C. area private schools -- among the most upscale in the nation -- averages about $10,000 less. For most private schools, the difference is even greater.

...

So why force most D.C. children into often dilapidated and underperforming public schools when we could easily offer them a choice of private schools? Some would argue that private schools couldn't or wouldn't serve the District's special education students, at least not affordably. Not so.

Consider Florida's McKay Scholarship program, which allows parents to pull their special-needs children out of the public schools and place them in private schools of their choosing. Parental satisfaction with McKay is stratospheric, the program serves twice as many children with disabilities as the D.C. public schools do, and the average scholarship offered in 2006-'07 was just $7,206. The biggest scholarship awarded was $21,907 -- still less than the average per-pupil spending in D.C. public schools. If Florida can satisfy the parents of special-needs children at such a reasonable cost, why can't the District?