What is the Proper Way to Run a School?

An article in the April 5 issue of Time reminds us how deeply ingrained collectivist habits of thought are in this country. The piece deals with the Chicago school board's decision to stop holding back (or "flunking" as it used to be called) so many students. The article begins like this:

Eight years ago, Chicago moved to end social promotion of its students, and the city has since been a bellwether in the debate over whether to keeps kids who don't meet standards from moving on to the next grade. But the city's school board changed its program last week. In a new policy, it pledged more support for struggling students and ended the practice of holding back kids solely on the basis of their math scores.

Now these few sentences raise a whole host of issues, some of which we'll consider below. But what I want to point out first is the subtle collectivism in the very premise of the article. Who decided to end social promotion of students? Why, according to the article, Chicago did. And which students does this change affect? Well, according to the article, "Chicago" ended the social promotion of its students. Thus, the entire city apparently made a decision, concerning all of the children it apparently possesses.

Many people would probably wonder at my commentary so far. Don't news writers talk like this all the time? After all, the "United States" invaded Iraq, and "Israel" and "Palestine" have peace talks. So why can't "Chicago" make a decision about "its" students?

But that's my point: This type of language is so pervasive that we don't even think about it. Nonetheless, it's still perverse, and perpetuates collectivist attitudes that have wrought so much misery in the last century.

Of course, there are problems with this announcement that go beyond semantics. Like any good bureaucrat, Chicago schools CEO Arne Duncan "insists the changes do not amount to a reversal." Duncan elaborates: "This is an evolving process . . . I think we're getting smarter." (That's fortunate; at least some people in Chicago are learning.)

Naturally, the political school board can rely on an "independent study . . . conducted by the Consortium on Chicago School Research at the University of Chicago." What was the major finding of this study that prompted the non-reversal reversal? According to a leak to the Chicago Sun-Times, the study finds that tests scores of third graders who flunked showed "no appreciable increase," and that the test scores of sixth graders who were held back actually declined.

But what does this prove? One of the primary functions of a punishment is to motivate people to avoid it in the first place. Perhaps the strongest argument against so-called "social promotion" is that kids would have no reason to study if there were no possibility of failure. Whether or not students who are held back do better the next time through a grade is not the major consideration. For an analogy, suppose researchers discovered that people who served prison time twice for armed robbery were more likely to commit future crimes than those who had only served prison time once for armed robbery. Would that be an argument for legalizing theft?

Homeschooling is a tribute to the abilities of average parents who are concerned with their children's education. It is also a shocking indictment of government and even many private schools. I do not want the reader to misunderstand me: I am not saying that I oppose "social promotion." But I am also not saying that I endorse it. The thing is, the decision to pass or fail a student is a complex one, and should not (indeed, cannot) be reduced to a few rules. In my own classes, I have discovered that different students require different types of motivation: Some respond well to guilt trips, others to pestering, and others to threats. I conduct my classes at the elective level far differently from those at the introductory level, even though these are all undergraduate economics classes. It makes me shudder to think of the poor teachers in Chicago who must take orders from ignorant government busybodies.

What's the solution? Fortunately, we don't have to decide one way or the other. We have the option of allowing free individuals to reach their own conclusions. In a private educational setting, with no government meddling, individual schools could set their own policies. Parents and students would then be free to patronize whichever schools seemed the most successful to them. If "social promotion" is truly the feel-good New Age gobble-de-gook that many old-timers believe, then it would fail the market test and would quickly be replaced by more traditional methods.

I'd like to point out that one of the most pernicious effects of State-controlled schooling is that we're reduced to such petty bickering over details. Squabbles such as this one blind us to the outrageous uniformity that the State imposes on all forms of official schooling. Even those of us who, in the abstract, favor a completely free market in education often lose sight of this, and consequently we should take a moment to seriously imagine the possibilities of an unregulated market, where innovative entrepreneurs are free to experiment with new curricula and teaching methods.

The desire for education is as universal (and as open-ended) as the desire for food or housing. And even though these markets themselves are far from laissez-faire, the options here range from Taco Bell all the way up to five-star restaurants with master chefs, and from tiny apartments all the way up to mansions situated on golf courses.[1] In contrast, there is not nearly the same qualitative difference between an education at a community college versus an Ivy League school; the material and format of the college experience is largely the same, except that the difficulty at a Harvard or Yale is higher.

As in other contexts, the proponent of massive deregulation in education is at a loss to describe exactly what the market would erect if the State's propaganda centers were allowed to crumble. After all, that's one of the strongest arguments for liberty: We just don't know what improvements will be discovered by clever entrepreneurs. (If we did, concerned parents would already be lobbying for such changes at their current schools.) But one sure sign that the present system is horribly failing is the success of the homeschooling movement. In my experience, some of the very best students were not products of institutionalized schooling, but instead were taught by Mom and Dad (even through the high school level).

On the one hand, this phenomenon is a tribute to the abilities of average parents who are concerned with their children's education. But on the other, it is a shocking indictment of government and even many private schools, for we should certainly expect the division of labor to operate in the area of education as well as in other contexts. (We would certainly be surprised to discover that the children with the straightest teeth were those who had braces applied by their parents, rather than professional orthodontists.)

Although it is impossible to predict the specific improvements that would occur in an unshackled market for education, one thing is clear: There are currently too many students enrolled in schools. At the lower levels, compulsory attendance laws literally make schools a prison sentence for many children who would otherwise choose to go into the work force. Proponents of compulsory attendance would no doubt retort that our nation will not tolerate millions of children who lack basic reading and math skills. But guess what? That's exactly what the current system is producing. I can't think of a better way to sabotage learning than to fill classrooms with children who are ultimately only there because of armed police officers.

Even at the higher levels, massive government subsidies encourage far too many students and force a watering down of educational quality. If the prevailing wisdom is that "every child should get a college degree," then it necessarily follows that a college degree won't stand for much. The problem isn't merely that standards must be lowered in order for the weaker students to pass. No, even the brightest students suffer from the presence of grossly outmatched classmates, since the teacher can't cover as much material, and because the best students become lazy when even a minimum of effort guarantees them an "A" in the class.

All of this would disappear virtually overnight with the introduction of market discipline into the educational system. Children who had no desire to sit through classes would no longer be forced to do so. The remaining children would be the ones who wanted to learn. Moreover, once students (or their parents) were forced to pay the full tuition expenses, the students would work much harder and schools would become much more competitive. Although, on average, students would receive fewer years of formal schooling, this would not translate into less educated students, for the time spent in school would be used far more efficiently. Yes, fewer students would have college degrees, but even high school diplomas would be a much stronger signal to employers once schools were completely privatized.

Education in this country will never truly be "fixed" until the government stops its counterproductive meddling. If it really wants to help students, the Chicago school board should resign and encourage the abolition of the government's role in education. Its performance thus far has earned the board a big fat F.

Robert Murphy is an adjunct scholar of the Mises Institute and is an adjunct scholar at the Mackinac Center in Midland, Michigan. He teaches economics at Hillsdale College. robert_p_murphy@yahoo.com. See the Murphy Archive. Discuss this article on the blog

[1] Even though the government regulates the food and housing industries, the interventions are largely prohibitions on unacceptable products, rather than prescriptions for approved ones. For example, if the State were to regulate the food industry in the same way it regulates schooling, all restaurants would be required to serve a well-balanced meal consisting of items from the different food groups.

I think there are two legitimate types of articles that can be written on the subject, and this was neither.

Type 1) Addressed to the average American, on the reasons why state controlled 'educution' is both wrong and a failure, and that free market systems are the solution.

Type 2) Addressed to those who already understand point 1, on the practical political steps that can be taken to change the status quo.

This certainly is not 2, and if it was 1, I really don't think telling people that the kids won't be in school is helpful.

I like that paragraph, but of course it is still slightly misleading. There is one more primary necessity for any "fix," and that is the realization that every child differs in aptitudes, and there is no real solution for those who have an emotionally driven inability to accept the reality of human differences.

For my take on education, in general, see Public Schools: Issues & Reality.

William Flax

1) Parent Teacher Association nominate the teachers for one year terms --- the parents of the entire school vote Yea or Nay, while school officials have no vote.

2) The teachers act in loco parentis and have the power to discipline the kids --- incidents are under the jurisdiction of the Parent Teacher Association, while school officials have no say. 3) The education laws in this country are made by the people of their respective States and in their counties and towns, through the democratic-republican legislative process --- NOT BY JUDGES --- and therefore the people shall determine how to pay for education by compelling their legislators to write the laws, and the judicial branch shall have not power nor say in the matter, because the authority to make the tax laws was not delegated to the judicial branch, and judges have NO POWER to decide if a tax law is, or is not, Constitutional.

4) The organizational structure of schools shall have one principal, a secretarial pool, custodians, guards, medical --- BUT NOT VICE-PRESIDENTS, NO ASSOCIATE EXECUTIVE ADMINISTRATIVE NON-USEFUL BUREAUCRATS.

5) Teachers' unions are banned, outlawed, period.

"state controlled 'education' is both wrong and a failure"

My wife and I are homeschooling our two young children. They will be taught the basics first; Reading, Grammar, Phonics, American History, Logic, Christian and Western values. Science, Math, Latin, Greek and Philosophy will be the next phase. Art, Music as they show interest and aptitude.

Public school is not a failure, it's doing exactly what it has been intended for; mind control. Public school is an insidious bloated bureaucracy that hasn't the slightest interest in truly educating children. Their malevolent function is social engineering, turning out pliant, liberal, permissive, morons incapable of independent thought, without a trace of the historical, social, cultural or moral values of America as established by our forefathers over two hundred years ago.

Save your children and restore America, homeschool or seek out a quality private or Christian school.

Public school is not a failure, it's doing exactly what it has been intended for; mind control. Public school is an insidious bloated bureaucracy that hasn't the slightest interest in truly educating children. Their malevolent function is social engineering, turning out pliant, liberal, permissive, morons incapable of independent thought, without a trace of the historical, social, cultural or moral values of America as established by our forefathers over two hundred years ago.

Do you stereotype everything in life? Not all public schools are evil, in fact some are pretty darned good.

Save your children and restore America, homeschool or seek out a quality private or Christian school.

A few years ago I would have wholeheartedly agreed with that. We started my older son in a good Christian school: one that had excellent success with kids, wasn't afraid to discipline, and taught a good well-rounded Christian curriculum. They couldn't deal with him. He was way ahead of the other kids in about half the classes, and way behind in others. The school agreed it wasn't working. Same thing in Christian School #2.

We homeschooled for a while, and that was no better.

We finally broke down and tried a government school until we could find a better private one. I cried when we put him there (one of about 4 times in my life I can recall crying.) But he thrived there (at least compared to the other 2 types of schools). He still has some of the same issues, being far ahead in some areas and far behind in others. But they are better able to tailor some curricula for him. This year, he had to change schools, and the new school was a disaster for him. We pulled him out and homeschooled for a while until we convince the school system to try a different govmt school. They finally agreed about 2 months ago, and he is doing well.

I'm watching out for ungodly teachings and improper subject matter, but so far that hasn't been an issue.

Our younger son had the opposite experience. Government school totally failed him. We are now homeschooling him, and he is doing quite well here.

Read some of the books on the origins of puplic schools "Trojan Horse and the NEA" comes to mind first. You don't even know what you don't know...
It's like taking the Red Pill...you can never go back.
So be careful if you decide to take the journey of self education and wake up it's a long and unimagined one.

You make a good point. Education isn't "one size fits all" - and that goes for homeschooling as well. Some writers make a "religion" out of it; claiming that it's the "only" way, etc. It's not. Nor are all public schools evil.

Many of these problems are the result of the federal government meddling for 30 years in *local* education. Before federal money and the Department of Education, practically every state education law allowed the superintendent to *excuse* children from mandatory attendance, and a lot of students *were* excused. Now with the federal gov't *mandating* that students be offered special ed, and with courts *mandating* that those kids be mainstreamed, you have a massive problem no "flunk 'em" policy is going to remedy.

Of course, more federal intrusion into education has been dumped on public school districts in the form of No Child Left Behind, which isn't going to solve the problem either.

The problem with holding kids back is that you get very old children (13 or 14 in 6th-7th grade, for instance) with smaller and younger ones. The federal government provides money for special education, but districts vary *widely* in the quality of their special ed. programs. Further complicating the picture is the fact that courts have often mandated "mainstreaming" for kids who really can't learn in the conventional classroom.

But a kid who gets passed on without knowing the materials will either be unable to understand what is being taught (because he/she is missing the foundations) or the students who were legitimately promoted will have to sit through lessons from the prior years.

I remember Mr. Shaw, my 5th grade teacher in Guantanamo, taught us about nouns and verbs. I struggled with the concepts. I was the junior scientist. He said nouns were things you could touch and see. So in my mind that eliminated most gasses, energy, ideas, sounds, etc. He kept telling me I was being silly. For the life of me I couldn't figure out what he was talking about. He would tell us one thing, and then contradict it.

When we got to verbs, the light went on. He was trying to classify WORDS! Why didn't he say so?

When I got into 6th grade, they started out by teaching us what nouns and verbs were. What was this about? We learned this last year! The 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th (back in the States) all started the same. They would start out with nouns and verbs. I greatly resented having to sit through that for a full quarter every year.

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