"If you're going to have a public subsidy to education, vouchers are clearly a better way of delivering it. They should result in some loosening up and privatization of the government school system"
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Peter Brimelow argues that if taxpayers are going to fund schooling, those dollars should follow students rather than institutions. Vouchers embody that logic: public subsidies go directly to families, who then choose among competing schools, including private and religious providers. The goal is to replace a territorially assigned monopoly with a marketplace, betting that competition, choice, and exit will spur improvement.
The idea sits in a classical liberal tradition dating to Milton Friedman, who proposed vouchers in the 1950s as a way to preserve a minimal public role while unleashing private innovation. In practice, voucher experiments in Milwaukee and Cleveland in the 1990s, and later legal decisions like Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, opened the door to wider adoption. Recent years have seen expansions into education savings accounts that give families even more discretion over spending on tuition, tutoring, or materials.
The mechanism Brimelow favors treats schooling as a public good financed socially but delivered privately. Proponents say this aligns incentives: schools must earn enrollment, parents exercise consumer sovereignty, and funds reward performance rather than compliance. A more pluralistic supply could loosen bureaucratic constraints, enable specialized models, and pressure district schools to adapt.
The counterarguments focus on equity, accountability, and civic purpose. Critics warn that vouchers can siphon resources from public systems, enable cream-skimming, and deepen stratification by income, disability, or language status. Private providers face lighter public oversight, raising concerns about quality, transparency, and church-state entanglement. Rural areas may see few alternatives, limiting competitive effects. And treating education primarily as a consumer service risks weakening its role in building a shared civic culture and democratic governance.
Brimelow’s claim thus crystallizes a larger choice: Is education best understood as a publicly governed institution with collective obligations, or as a publicly funded service best allocated through family choice and market discipline? Where one lands on that question largely determines the appeal of vouchers and the privatizing tilt they introduce.
The idea sits in a classical liberal tradition dating to Milton Friedman, who proposed vouchers in the 1950s as a way to preserve a minimal public role while unleashing private innovation. In practice, voucher experiments in Milwaukee and Cleveland in the 1990s, and later legal decisions like Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, opened the door to wider adoption. Recent years have seen expansions into education savings accounts that give families even more discretion over spending on tuition, tutoring, or materials.
The mechanism Brimelow favors treats schooling as a public good financed socially but delivered privately. Proponents say this aligns incentives: schools must earn enrollment, parents exercise consumer sovereignty, and funds reward performance rather than compliance. A more pluralistic supply could loosen bureaucratic constraints, enable specialized models, and pressure district schools to adapt.
The counterarguments focus on equity, accountability, and civic purpose. Critics warn that vouchers can siphon resources from public systems, enable cream-skimming, and deepen stratification by income, disability, or language status. Private providers face lighter public oversight, raising concerns about quality, transparency, and church-state entanglement. Rural areas may see few alternatives, limiting competitive effects. And treating education primarily as a consumer service risks weakening its role in building a shared civic culture and democratic governance.
Brimelow’s claim thus crystallizes a larger choice: Is education best understood as a publicly governed institution with collective obligations, or as a publicly funded service best allocated through family choice and market discipline? Where one lands on that question largely determines the appeal of vouchers and the privatizing tilt they introduce.
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| Topic | Teaching |
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