School choice

Education in the U.S. below the 12th grade in the U.S. is virtually public and the results are often poor.  Education above the12th grade in the U.S. is public and private and the best in the world.  If we want better below the 12th, we can privatize a lot of it with vouchers. It is accountable for the parents. They would shop for schools instead of moving to different school districts.  Private schools would spring up according to demand for the disabled, the athletic, vocational, college-bound, English-deficient – whatever.  They would hire more para-professionals and aides.  Public schools would have to compete by cutting top-heavy bureaucracies, tenured union employees, etc. Those that didn’t produce would lose students.  They would lose money but still have the same amount to spend per student.

Parents of private school students would not have to pay twice – once in taxes for public schools and again in tuition for private schools. But many of them are not rich.  (Some are teachers in the public schools).

Critics say the new private schools wouldn’t be regulated, but those regulations haven’t helped the public schools.

The church-state issue shouldn’t amount to much because most students in Catholic schools for years have been Protestants.  If their parents aren’t worried, it must be working.

The public schools establishment and their unions monopolized education for years with disastrous results; it’s time for that most American of virtues – competition.