Modern American Education

What is it, really? The argument in favor of vouchers has long been won on the intellectual level when, in 1990, the Washington Post wrote that when both the conservative Heritage Foundation and the liberal Brookings Institution agree on its benefits, the argument is over.

Laura at The Thinking Housewife agrees that something is amiss with modern-day schooling, linking to the wonderful John Taylor Gatto in another entry, "The New Dumbness." He's the former teacher of the year in New York state, who came to realize the approach stifles truly independent though.

Laura writes:

Whatever its failures or triumphs in the realm of learning, the American public education system is a resounding success as an employment agency and as a prison system.

So on pure Public Choice grounds, it's the naked self-interest of those employed in the system that insure its perpetuity. I spent a year at SAU2 as a high school teacher in the mid-1990s. That was enough for me--for whom teaching is a calling and no mere job--to switch to the lower-paying private position. I can teach there.