“While the choice appears to be between students and systems, the reality is that what they are offering is a repeat of the failed systemic approach. A better approach is focusing on education independence and empowering families to make informed choices.” – Top 10 Misleading Claims of “School Choice”
Like many political movements, School Choice has successfully pitched its policies in slogan form. The benefit of using this literary tactic is that slogans are easy to rally around and difficult to analyze. So often, School Choice advocates win the debate before it really begins by repeating phrases like “The money should follow the child” and “Your child, your choice.”
The Education Independence resource Top 10 Misleading Claims of “School Choice” critically examines and refutes 10 misleading claims commonly made by School Choice supporters. This article will consider the first claim: “Fund students, no systems.”
“Fund students, not systems” is a persuasive mantra because it correctly values individual students over institutions and corporations. However, the proposed action—to publicly fund education—carries with it significant consequences that must be considered. Simply put, government funding education is not the solution because public funding fails students and systems by inviting public control and raising market prices.
Public Funding Brings Public Control
Have you ever heard School Choice advocates claim that ESA or voucher programs give families free money without government strings attached? If their assertion is correct, School Choice truly is the wonder-policy they make it out to be. However, if it is untrue and public money comes with government control, School Choice poses a grave danger to families and American education independence. Sadly, we do not have to look far to learn that the latter is true.
What happened in Sweden?
Like the United States, Sweden had both public and private schools, and families had the freedom to choose between them. Public schools were publicly funded, and private schools were privately funded. Then, School Choice swept the nation. With their convincing slogans and pithy promises, they convinced parents and politicians alike that parents didn’t really have educational choice and needed the government to give it to them.
So, on June 9, 1992, the Swedish parliament adopted a bill named 1991/92:95 “Om valfrihet och fristående skolor,” or in English, “On Freedom of Choice and Independent schools.” Under this law, independent schools (or private schools) were given the same status as municipal schools (or public schools). The bill stated, “for each pupil, the school shall be allocated an amount equal to the municipality’s average cost per pupil in its own basic school.” In short, the money would follow the child into both public and private schools.
This policy essentially manifested the slogan “Fund students, not systems” in Swedish schools because it attached public money to individual children rather than funding the system they were educated in.
The Consequences Legislation
The consequences of this legislation have been severe and far-reaching. Under this law, all Swedish schools are now under the authority of the Skolinspektionen or the Swedish Schools Inspectorate. This government agency, which is comparable to the United States Department of Education, now has the jurisdiction to oversee the funding, licensing, curriculum, teaching, hiring, firing, and enrollment of all schools. Surely, these must be considered “strings” that are attached to public funding?
Even today, all schools must receive permission from the Skolinspektionen before opening, they must be non-confessional (otherwise known as secular), and they must comply with regular state inspections. With private schools like this, who needs public schools?
By publicly funding students through universal voucher programs, Sweden lost all private education. Today, the Swedish Schools Inspectorate rules over children’s education. Has this left parents with an educational choice? Hardly! Rather, it has taken away the educational choice parents once had.
This is the result that School Choice delivers, and it will happen in America if we allow it. As Robert Bortins said during his conversation with Lisa Logan, “People say, well, you’re using a slippery slope argument. It’s not a slippery slope! It’s a hill that I’ve seen 10 people fall down!”
Public Funding Raises Prices
Public funding not only fails families, but it also fails the market. A major concern of School Choice advocates is the price of private education, and their solution is to inject the market with federal subsidies. However, it is well known among all economically literate people that subsidies inflate markets. When you flood a market with artificial dollars, the market responds by increasing prices.
So, drawing from these basic principles, we can know for certain that School Choice vouchers and ESA programs will always increase tuition prices. The effects of this are twofold: ESA recipients will become dependent on government funds, and independently funded families will be priced out of the education market.
First, families who take the money offered by School Choice policies will forever rely upon so-called governmental charity to fund their educational choices because they could never fiscally compete in the newly inflated education market without extra funds.
Second, families who do not take the money will suffer tremendously because prices will rise and rise around them until they can no longer afford to educate their child. In either case, the government causes families to suffer and distorts the market into an inflated, state-controlled system.
The Importance of Education Independence
That is one reason Classical Conversations® strongly supports private funding of education. To learn more about that, read We Believe in Private Funding.
Not only this, however, but School Choice funds also turn the education market from a vast decentralized economic landscape into an island of centralized markets, making the product of schooling intensely attractive to big corporations. As Robert Bortins warns, “Universal basic education income is not a conservative policy. It is a neoliberal policy. Just wait for Amazon, Disney, Microsoft, and Apple to start buying up schools…” To learn more about the implications of that probability, listen to Robert Bortins’ conversation with James Lindsay and read The Trap of Corporatized Education.
The debate between funding students or funding systems is a false dichotomy—it assumes public funding is the only path to educational opportunity. In reality, families can and do create vibrant learning communities outside of government systems and funding altogether. True education freedom empowers parents to direct their children’s learning without needing to reshape state-run structures or reassign public dollars.
Choose Better, Join the Network!
As we have seen clearly, we should not publicly fund students nor systems because public funding fails students and systems by inviting public control and raising market prices. So, let’s choose better by choosing private funding that frees! Independent education and private funding promote and protect the benefits of private funding, the God-given right to parental autonomy, and will cause society to flourish in freedom.
Do you want to learn more about how you can engage with this better model? Read these resources!
Also, join the Education Independence Network and gain exclusive access to timely legislative updates and opportunities, monthly newsletters, invitations to monthly virtual seminars, and so much more!
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