What Sort of School Choice Market Do We Want?
I have a sort of mania for clarity in public聽debates, which is a useful obsession for working in education policy.聽American education arguments聽are frequently fought on grounds that have little to do with聽substance, and a lot to do with ideology. That’s part of .
In keeping with my obsession, then, I published . Here’s a sample:
[T]o an important degree, we already have a market in American education. The problem is that it鈥檚 an awkward, unacknowledged market. We pretend as though neighborhood public schools are public goods provided to all American children as a part of their citizenship. As a matter of supply, this is (mostly) true. But, as is relatively obvious, the contours of that public good vary considerably according to local real estate markets. Parents who can afford the right mortgages can essentially purchase a higher-quality PreK鈥12 education for their children…Instead of asking whether we are willing to move education from 鈥渢he public domain鈥 to a system of 鈥減rivate provision,鈥 we ought to focus on [another question]: what sort of an education market do we really want?