Who Determines ‘Educational Needs’?—and the Need to Answer Opposing Views

In a comment to my post "Letter: ‘Vouchers Will Hurt Public Schools.’ So?", correspondent Burr Deming offered:

As always, you present a coherent argument for the libertarian view, in this case against the exclusive funding of public education over private alternatives.

We published a link to your article. As might be expected from a left of center site, there was articulate disagreement.

The thrust of that opposing argument is that public education came to be precisely because of educational needs not addressed by private education.

I like your habit of publishing views with which you disagree, alongside your reasons for disagreeing. We try to follow your good example.

I answered Burr as follows:

Thanks for the encouraging comments. 

As to those arguing that "public education came to be precisely because of educational needs not addressed by private education," my answer is: Go ahead, address it. In a free market, or even a semi-free market of universal school choice, who could stop you? One of the best features of a fully free and private education market is precisely to allow education entrepreneurs to identify unmet needs and offer new and innovative solutions. Everyone should be free to implement their ideas — by voluntary consent and agreement. The minute someone decides to use government force to impose and pay for her “solution” to what she has decided are “unmet” educational needs, she is denying to others with different ideas the same freedom: She is defeating the very purpose by which she defends public education. 

Mike Kevitt also offered food for thought:

The "educational needs" not addressed by private education are the collectivist indoctrination of students. Those are the "needs" of advocates of government schools. It's government schools which don't address educational needs, such as civics.

I replied to Mike: Good point. What about the educational needs not addressed by public education?

I would also argue that complete abolition of public schools is not necessary even if you buy the argument about “educational needs not addressed by private education.” My Objective Standard article Toward a Free Market in Education: School Vouchers or Tax Credits presented a tax credit proposal would leave traditional public schools operational. So would a form of Education Savings Accounts that would simply allow the allotted per-pupil cost of each district to follow the student to the parents’ schooling of choice, choices that would include the traditional public school. 

Granting government monopoly decision-making power, thus excluding the vast private sector from the decision-making process, we would be much less likely to meet students’ educational needs. The bottom line is, it is simply immoral and unfair to assign government planners the exclusive power to determine the educational needs of students, shutting out the parents and all others from the process.

Back to Burr, I was particularly pleased with his observation “I like your habit of publishing views with which you disagree, alongside your reasons for disagreeing.” Most of my posts do just that. I believe people’s opposing views should be properly presented, which is why I rely on direct quotes as much as possible, along with links. I don’t think “straw man” arguments are fair to the person one is critiquing. But also, the person offering the critique loses all credibility. On a personal note, advocating my own views in the context of focussing on opposing views helps me sharpen my own arguments by causing my to consider objections I may not have otherwise considered.

Thanks, Burr.

Related Reading:

School Choice Doesn’t ‘Discriminate’; It Expands Opportunity Through Liberation

Contra Congressman Donald M. Payne, a ‘For-Profit Model’ is Just What Education Needs

The Educational Bonanza in Privatizing Government Schools—Andrew Bernstein for The Objective Standard

Real School Choice Depends on Free Exercise of Individual Rights

Former N.J. Governor Florio’s Immoral Hostility Toward the Needs of the ‘Most Motivated Students’