All Posts Tagged With: "government schools"

A Libertarian Program for Urban Renewal

In the spirit of providing politically feasible “libertarian policies,” I want to offer a set of proposals to improve one area of American society that desperately needs it: the inner city.

29Sep2011 | Steven Horwitz | 14 comments | Continued

Growing Government Ensures “National Greatness”?

There is widespread belief among politicians, public officials, and pundits that if government doesn’t give us the seeds, nothing will grow. A friend of mine served on our city’s legislative council for eight years. During that time he often heard—in defense of tax-funded business incentives—“If we don’t do something, nothing will happen.” The same belief [...]

21Sep2011 | Arthur E. Foulkes | 6 comments | Continued

The Joy of Freedom: An Economist’s Odyssey

Growing up in a fairly poor family in rural Manitoba, David Henderson would have seemed an unlikely candidate for the authorship of one of the most resounding libertarian books to come along in years. But an innate sense that there was something valuable in having the freedom to live one’s life according to one’s own [...]

30Jun2010 | George C. Leef | 0 comments | Continued

R. C. Hoiles and Public Schooling

In a letter dated May 23, 1946, the libertarian publisher R. C. Hoiles wrote to Leonard E. Read, who would establish the Foundation for Economic Education later that same year. Hoiles advised Read on what he believed was the underlying cause of America’s alarming shift from individual liberty toward socialism: I am inclined to think [...]

20May2010 | Wendy McElroy | 2 comments | Continued

The Beautiful Tree

In the poorest parts of the world you’ll find private education. From Ghana to India to China, private schools are sprouting up everywhere. There are new schools opening where none were before. There are also new schools where government “free” schools already exist but languish. Why? Simple: Parents want the best for their children. They [...]

24Mar2010 | Max Borders | 1 comment | Continued

Government Schools and the Housing Mess

The Law of Unintended Consequences is a fascinating thing. You can never be entirely sure what the second-, third-, etc.- order effects of any action will be. This is especially so with government policy because centralized decision-making can do so much damage to so many people. That ought to humble the politicians and bureaucrats, but [...]

1Jun2008 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | Continued

Court Holds California’s Homeschoolers in Suspense

Anyone interested in the nearly criminal mismanagement of the nation’s government-run schools need only do research on the acronym LAUSD. In March 2006 Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraiogosa gave a speech blasting the LAUSD—Los Angeles Unified School District—for its “culture of complacency” and described the dropout problem in the district as “the new civil rights [...]

1May2008 | Steven Greenhut | 0 comments | Continued

I’d Push the Button—To Establish Freedom Right Now

In April 1946, a month after the late Leonard E. Read established the Foundation for Economic Education, he gave a talk in Detroit called “I’d Push the Button.” He said that if there were a button on the podium that would immediately abolish all controls and regulations on the U.S. economy, he would push it. [...]

1Jun2005 | Richard M. Ebeling | 0 comments | Continued

Weighing In

Last spring the Arkansas legislature passed a law requiring schools to compute each student’s body mass (using the Body Mass Index, BMI) and record it on report cards. The BMI generates a number based on a person’s height and weight, and is supposed to indicate something about one’s health. However, it’s been criticized for not [...]

1Nov2003 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | Continued

Book Reviews – June 2003

Dependent on D.C.: The Rise of Federal Control Over the Lives of Ordinary Americans by Charlotte Twight St. Martin’s Press/Palgrave • 2002 • 512 pages • $26.95 hardcover; $17.95 paperback Reviewed by James Bovard Charlotte Twight has written an excellent book to help Americans understand how the federal government is insidiously seizing control of their lives, year by year, edict [...]

1Jun2003 | FEE Admin | 0 comments | Continued

Does Prosperity Depend on Education?

Christopher Lingle is professor of economics at Universidad Francisco Marroquín in Guatemala and global strategist for eConoLytics.com. New Delhi, India—It has become an article of faith that economic progress depends on having an educated citizenry. A corollary is often attached, requiring governments to provide resources to meet this end. However, like so many self-evident truths, [...]

1May2003 | Christopher Lingle | 1 comment | Continued

The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists’ Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics

As this is being written, the television talking heads are imploring us “not to walk away” from Afghanistan and to “invest” billions there instead. Before buying into that idea, everyone should read this book by a former World Bank economist whose forthrightness has evidently cost him his job. Early on, Easterly makes the following observation [...]

16Mar2003 | John T. Wenders | 0 comments | Continued

Toward an Educational Renaissance

Chris Cardiff is a homeschooling father of three spirited girls, a trustee of the California Homeschool Network, and a vice president of AOL. None of these groups—including his family—necessarily endorses his views. Can parents be trusted to educate their own children? The underlying assumption of America’s vast government school system is that they cannot. Yet [...]

1May2001 | Chris Cardiff | 2 comments | Continued

Dangerous Donations

lf government didn’t build and support schools, almost everyone would be ignorant—right? Believers in liberty often have to argue against that canard. Dangerous Donations: Northern Philanthropy and Southern Black Education, 1902-1930, by historians Eric Anderson and Alfred Moss, shows the remarkable extent to which northern citizens voluntarily supported the education of southern blacks when government [...]

1Jun2000 | George C. Leef | 1 comment | Continued

Independent Schools at Risk

Jacob Huebert is a student at Grove City College and an intern at FEE. As discontentment with government schools grows, tax-funded “school choice” has emerged as the leading reform proposal. School-choice programs typically include a voucher plan, although some would make direct payments from the government to private schools. Those proposals are intended to give [...]

1Sep1999 | Jacob H. Huebert | 2 comments | Continued

School-to-Work: A Large Step Down the Road to Serfdom

Gary Wolfram is the George Munson Professor of Political Economy at Hillsdale College. It’s been five years since Congress enacted the “School-to-Work Opportunities Act.” School-to-Work is a federal program that ostensibly is designed to improve the work skills of children in the nation’s government schools. The theory is that our education system should prepare children [...]

1Sep1999 | Gary Wolfram | 0 comments | Continued

Government Is No God

Assume you need surgery to remove a brain tumor. Two physicians in your town offer to perform this operation. Dr. Smith specializes in neurosurgery; it’s his sole occupation. Dr. Jones, however, divides his time among a variety of occupations. Along with performing neurosurgery, he practices dentistry, gynecology, podiatry, and radiology. He also spends part of [...]

1Jun1999 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 0 comments | Continued
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