Educational Monopoly

Andrew J. Coulson has written an article entitled, "Time to End The Monopoly in Education." His article is written from an economic perspective. He writes, "Far from being an engine of wealth creation, the education system is bleeding the economy to death. The U.S. spends 2.3 times as much per pupil in real, inflation-adjusted dollars as it spent in 1970, but the return on this ballooning investment has been less than nothing."

If you research public education, you will find no correlation between increased spending and increased achievement. As a matter of fact, Coulson states that student achievement at the end of high school has been flat for nearly 40 years. He writes, "Student achievement at the end of high school has been flat for nearly 40 years, according to a recent study by the Education Department, while the graduation rate fell over the same period, according to a report by James Heckman, a Nobel laureate economist." How can that be in a country such as ours?

Coulson is not done; there is more as he writes, "If the efficiency of U.S. public schooling had merely remained at its 1970 level, the country would enjoy the equivalent of an annual $300 billion tax cut. The productivity collapse in education is more than staggering; it's unparalleled. Can you name any other service or product that has gotten worse and less affordable over the past two generations? The reason you can't is that no other field is organized as a state-run monopoly."

Now, I would like to refer back to my history lessons from middle school on monopolies. I was taught that monopolies were bad for our country and bad for our people. Monopolies gave one company an unfair advantage, drove up prices and drove other companies out of business which produced unemployed workers. But, here is the most important lesson I learned in Monroe School in Monroe, Massachusetts about monopolies... monopolies eliminate competition and without competition, mediocrity will soon replace excellence. Could that be on of the problems public-sector education faces? I believe this idea could be worth exploring. To read the rest of this fine article, click HERE. Blessings!