Thinking Outside the Box
Thinking
Outside the Box
>>Valley Patriot>> |
Education
Stamps
Without air, we would die within minutes. Without water, we would die within several days. Without food, we would die within several weeks. Without shelter, we would certainly perish shortly after winter set in. Without education … well it is not as clear, especially if education is defined as knowledge or skills extending beyond the basic survival mechanisms. Let’s just say that, without the three R’s, we probably would not have as high a standard of living and probably might not live quite as long. Education, while critically important to our well being, is certainly less critical than air, water, food, or shelter. As a nation we have come to embrace, wrongfully I believe, the notion that government should guarantee the basic necessities of life. Given their importance, it is worthwhile to stand back and compare how these necessities are provided and how government ensures their availability, if at all. Air – urgency period: minutes – is pretty plentiful and, as long as it is not polluted, there seems to be adequate supply. Social policy is largely restricted to ensuring that certain groups of individuals do not unload their problems (waste gasses or particulates) on the rest of us to avoid the costs of dealing with these burdens themselves. Properly done, these policies are fully justified. Water – urgency period: days – is also pretty plentiful, but its collection and distribution present some unique problems. Watershed areas, reservoirs, aqueducts, and distribution systems in public roadways make privatization more difficult and thus, in most cases, local government takes responsibility for the availability of water. So what happens if someone can’t afford to pay his or her water bill? If the consumer is a homeowner, a lien is placed on his home. Ultimately, the homeowner will pay. While it seems unlikely that someone would actually expire due to his inability to pay for water, there is no societal guarantee. As we move down the list we come to food – urgency period: weeks. In this case, we have left the creation, processing, and distribution of food to the private sector. So, what do we do when a person or a family is too poor to afford food? We have various support programs, but the most visible is the Food Stamp program. If you are poor, you get a book of stamps which can be redeemed at your local grocery store for food. The food is still grown, processed and distributed by a largely competitive, free market. If you are above the income requirement for Food Stamps, you need to finance your own food purchases from grocers, all with little or no help from the government (unless you consider the food pyramid a big help). Since food is so vital to life, what would you say if I suggested that each town open a grocery store with free food? It seems to make sense. Why should life-sustaining food be provided only at the mercy of profit-hungry businessmen? Why leave either the availability or the selection of food to private choice? Let’s use my favorite local town as an example. Initially, in North Andover, we could use the vacant Bradstreet School building to distribute free food, which would be most convenient to our more elderly downtown residents. To decide what food we should stock and who should get how much and when we should let them get it, I propose an elected, five-member Food Committee – or maybe we should call it the Grocery Store Committee, to put the emphasis on the facil-ities instead of the service being provided. To go with the Grocery Store Committee, we should also have an appointed Grocery Store Building Committee so we can plan for building future town grocery outlets. We could have the town moderator appoint some of the building committee members and have the Grocery Store Committee appoint several of their members as well. Is this beginning to sound familiar? Of course, a major tax hike would be need-ed to pay for this new service … an initial guess would be a doubling of the current property taxes. Given the critical need for food, this would be completely justified. With taxes doubled, paying for food at the private food stores would be unaffordable for most households. Nearly everyone would be drawn to the free food outlets. The Grocery Store Committee would have a tough job since the demand for free groceries would grow rapidly, not to mention the costs of union wages, work rules, healthcare and pensions. As the town’s costs soared, the committee would be faced with major financial problems. While food product standards would need to be set to protect the public, financial pressures would soon lead to a policy that any product exceeding these basic standards would be considered frivolous. Also, buying in volume saves money so variety would have to be strictly limited. Just the basic food pyramid would be stocked. Gourmet, specialty and junk food would have to be severely curtailed, if not eliminated completely. The restrictions on food costs would, of course, be waived for Special Edibles that would be mandated by the state for those who have special dietary needs. These people would need to go through a very difficult process to prove their need, sometimes hiring lawyers and, once their need was established, they would require an Individual Edibles Program that would be their ticket to extra food benefits. Maybe we could get Beacon Hill politicians to raise our state taxes to help defray the extra costs of these Special Edibles – that would help! If all of this just seems silly, you are very perceptive. But, if this suggestion is silly for food, maybe it would work for … housing! I often note that if the government had taken over the building of housing in the mid-1800s, any suggestion today that we get the government out of the house-building “business” and let private developers be responsible for housing construction would be scoffed at. People would say, “Housing is a necessity of life. How can you leave that to the private sector?” Or, “The general public isn’t sophisticated enough to buy something as complex and life-critical as housing!” Or, “Sure, most of our government homes are bland and uninspired and the government unions with their health insurance and pen-sions make the ‘housing tax’ too high, but what makes you so sure that people would be any better off if we relied on private developers for housing? It is far too risky!” Unfortunately, we made just such a deci-sion in the mid-1800s with education. “Free public education for all” was the mantra. What if “free public food for all” was the mantra and we opened town grocery out-lets as suggested above? Would we have the abundant choices and quality of food offered in our grocery stores today? What would the response be to eliminating free food? “You can’t do that, the poor would starve!” We have now lived with public education for over a century. You might recognize some parallels with the discussion of public food outlets or government housing noted above. The problems cited are not specific to education; they result from the removal of free market mechanisms. To suggest that education be privatized is considered unspeakable. Only the heart-less and those that do not value education could possibly suggest such a thing. Instead, let’s consider a much smaller step. Let’s consider a social welfare program for education … work with me now, I’m doing my best to satisfy those who believe government programs are a vital necessity. We will call the new program “Education Stamps” after the “Food Stamp” program. Certainly, if it is good enough for life-sustaining food, the lack of which will surely kill you in a matter of just a few weeks, it should also be good enough for education! But we will go even one step further down the communal path: we will offer these Education Stamps to ALL children … not just to the poor or needy! … and, we will keep the government schools open instead of depending entirely on private providers as we do in the case of food. Now you’re thinking: Wow, he’s gone completely off his rocker! I propose to give the parents of each child Education Stamps worth 80 percent of the average per-pupil cost of public education. The parents can then spend these Stamps at the school of their choice, including the option of spending them at the government schools. Now, the reader knows this proposal is merely “vouchers” by a different name. The reader also knows that voucher programs are considered conservative, right wing, free-market …and, therefore, awful, by the teachers unions and public school proponents. But I ask you to compare this proposal to the “welfare state” programs like Food Stamps or government-guaranteed housing programs. Clearly, an Education Stamp program is more communal in scope – both because it offers benefits to all, and because the government would continue to operate schools instead of just guaranteeing education funding/benefits. So why are
Education Stamps, or voucher programs, so vociferously
disparaged by government-school advocates and
unions? Is it because they want to protect the
children or, are they protecting something else? Does anyone doubt that putting billions of dollars into the hands of the education consumer and opening the door to com-petition would not greatly increase edu-cational opportunities or that it would im-prove the responsiveness of education pro-viders to the needs of individual children? Does anyone doubt that the public’s money wouldn’t be more efficiently spent as private educators vie for market share and profits? Consider the variety you see in your local supermarket and then consider the schools that would be opened by entrepreneurs in response to Education Stamps or vouchers. Many schools would focus on high-test aca-demics – some taking a balanced approach, some oriented to math and science, and others to language arts or civics. Some schools would stress excellent academics but specialize in art or music or, alternatively, in athletics. Some schools would specialize in programs tailored to students with learn-ing disabilities. The market would, without doubt, be extraordinarily responsive to customer desires. Does anyone think that the Education Stamp money received by private educational institutions would be disproportionately shifted to health and pension benefits? Would private providers permit incompetent teachers to be protected by tenure? Would they let work rules get in the way of productive teaching? Would they ignore their customers when they were told that their children were not being challenged or that basic arithmetic operations or phonics were not being taught? If there ever was a program that is “for the children”, this is it. It may still be “communal” in its funding, but it is a major step in the right direction when compared to the current government education monopoly. Too bad children can’t vote and/or hire lobbyists. If they could, we might already have Education Stamps. Dr.
Ormsby is a member of the North Andover School Committee.
He is a graduate of Cornell and has a doctorate from MIT.
If you have any questions or comments, you can contact
Dr. Ormsby via email: ccormsby@comcast.net *Send your questions
comments to ValleyPatriot@aol.com |
Which is more critical to life: air,
water, food, shelter, or education? Each, of course, is
critical to our survival, but some are more urgent than
others.