Obama and Competition in Education

Talk to small business owners about the state of education in this nation, and you’re bound to get an earful from many about how hard it is to find employees with basic reading, writing and math skills. It speaks volumes to the failure of our public education system.

If one understands economics, consumer control and competition, then it becomes clear that control over education must be taken away from the politicians and government bureaucrats running a public school monopoly, and handed over to parents, allowing them to choose the best education for their children.

A small, but important school voucher program helps students in the District of Columbia. But it has been placed in peril since the Democrats took over Congress and the White House.

The May 7 Washington Post noted that President Obama has offered a small compromise that would allow current voucher students to remain in private schools, but the overall program would be sentenced to a gradual death as no new students would be added.

The Post noted:

More than 8,000 District students have applied for scholarships since the program's inception, and about 3,000 have received the grants of as much as $7,500 a year for private or parochial schools. Of the 1,716 current scholarship recipients, about 1,400 are in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade. The largest cohort, 211 students, is in second grade, according to figures provided by the Washington Scholarship Fund, which administers the voucher program.

As for the actions by the President and Congress, the Post reported:

President Obama will propose setting aside enough money for all 1,716 students in the District's voucher program to continue receiving grants for private school tuition until they graduate from high school, but he would allow no new students to join the program, administration officials said yesterday…

Congress voted in March to cut off funding after the 2009-10 academic year unless the entire program is reauthorized by lawmakers, a dim prospect in the Democrat-led body. The White House proposal would revise the law and secure grants for the coming school year, but Obama has to persuade Democratic lawmakers to support a gradual phaseout by continuing to include grant funding in future appropriation bills.

While continued funding for existing vouchers would be good news for students already benefiting from them, it would be bad news for all other children in the District receiving a poor education stuck in government schools.

If we want the best education possible for our children, and for a productive, educated workforce, then politicians need to stop empowering the teachers unions and the government education establishment, and start empowering parents. The answer is not to keep feeding more resources to a government monopoly, but instead to spur choice and competition – and therefore excellence – in education.

Raymond J. Keating
Chief Economist
Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council