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Certainly parents are ultimately responsible for educating their children, particularly where the state manifestly is failing to do so, but those parents are faced with a perplexing dilemma because they cannot avail themselves of the funds taken from them in the form of public-school taxes in order to apply those funds to an alternatively means of educating their children. The state first impoverishes them through taxation and then tells them if they don’t accept the lousy education provided by the state, well then–fogetaboutit.

Last year he made over $100,000.00 with his \\"fifth grade schooling\\".

It seems to me that the “competition” issue is over stated.

The education debate sounds like another entitlement grab. The perception is that private schools are better than public schools so they can magically infuse children with knowledge. “Private school is a miraculous happy land where knowledge is given away to rich children by pixies and fairies and poor children deserve this same access to the Wee Folk.”

The truth is that the kids in private school have parents that care enough to pay extra money for their kid’s education. The parents are more likely to listen and interact with teachers, more likely to ensure their children do home work, more likely to take an interest in curricula and expand on the topic rather than doing the minimum, more likely to enforce discipline at home and at school, etc. With that kind of support you can be half the teacher my Dad was and do twice as much.

In private school I got spanked if I said “damn.” In public school a kid hit me in the head with a bat and all they did was send – me – home. Books and teachers had nothing to do with the difference between my days in private school and my days in public school. Discipline did. The books, desks, and sundry in the public school I attended were superior as was the teaching but I spent far more time defending my position in the pecking order than I did learning. If you want to fix public education hand out some paddles and make teachers immune to prosecution and you will see a miraculous transformation over night.

All that happens if we allow vouchers is the parents and children that do not care about education end up in private school, get kicked out, and end up back in a public school. The parents will scream “racism” or some other nonsense and sue the school and the scenario gets dark after lawyers get involved.

The way things stand the underclass has access to education and those that really care can escape the institutionalized mediocrity into the private school system without having to worry about being followed by the unmotivated and the discipline disinclined. I see it as accidental perfection because it certainly could not be better if we had tried to design it this way.

What Dr. Rothbard is addressing in this article is essentially the same question Lenin raised…Who?…Whom? Government, with its limited resources and clumsy method of allocating them cannot possibly do a good job of providing people with their needs and desires. Government-run programs will always be faced with the Who?…Whom? dilemma.

Does it strike anyone else as mildly ironic that the same people who are arguing for the public option in healthcare on the grounds of “competition” are the same people preventing any competition in education?

I have no issue with the government providing education in instances where the market is unable to do so (e.g. in poor areas) but the extent to which it controls education now is excessively monopolistic. Perhaps education is an issue that Democrats can address, considering their most recent love affair with “competition.”

In some cases the disagreement is exactly why the government should get involved. I do not trust the mob to run education or we’ll be having a repeat performance of the “Scopes Monkey Trials” every couple years. No thanks.

Take a look at Congress and imagine if the idiots that voted for these morons in charge of curriculum. Oh yeah. Great idea.

The government attempts to diminish demand while the private sector attempts to satisfy it.