We need an education system with an inbuilt tendency for better teaching to emerge and  thrive while inferior teaching fades away. We also need a system which is far more effective at catering to the specific needs and “learning styles” of individual children.

This is best achieved by a deregulated system where families are the customers and schools are free to compete for students by making their own decisions about the services they provide.

Families have the most interest in their children’s welfare. They are also in the best position to judge what they require (sometimes assisted by professional advice). The suppression of the role of families is part of the learned helplessness appropriate to wage slaves who cannot do their own thinking or make their own decisions.

The key to a family driven education system is the introduction of vouchers which allow them to shop around. With vouchers, they decide where tax dollars go rather than government officials.

The initial effect would be to increase competition between the existing private and public schools. Competition could then be increased by cutting the public schools loose from their bureaucratic moorings so that they can go their own way and compete against each other. A whole range of governance arrangements could then emerge including teacher cooperatives, non-profit associations and private firms. All sort of ideas and methods would be tried out with some succeeding and others failing. Some schools would be tailored to particular needs or preferences. This presupposes, of course, that such efforts are not stifled by the government imposing heavy handed regulation on the schools eligible to receive vouchers.

To pressure schools to keep their costs down and not just charge up to the voucher, voucher money not spent on fees would have to be available for families to spend on other education costs such as computers, books, sport, camping or fees in future years.

Socialism would have no trouble taking over or adopting a voucher system. In fact, the two are like a horse and carriage. Socialism just is not going to happen if the typical family would tolerate government officials making the decisions about their children’s education. Governments would provide the vouchers, investment grants and some minimal regulations relating to child protection and standards. Schools would only thrive if they are able to attract students.

There would perhaps be some private ownership in the case of existing schools and to the extent that schools raise their own funds for facilities from donations. However, facilities would generally be socially owned and schools would receive investment grants out of tax revenue like other sectors of the economy. Social ownership of assets would not rule out groups with a particular religious or cultural bent setting up schools, as long as they have the clientele to justify their investment funding.

Ultimately, schooling should be considered like any other service with the user paying current avoidable costs. Once the lowest wages are sufficiently high, full fee payment would not be an excessive burden. The investment grants would probably be a subsidy in effect to parents given that they come from general tax revenue. And they could also take into account much of the benefits to non-parents of other people’s children being educated.

Given the overwhelming opposition to vouchers in Australia among teachers and the chatterati generally, it would be a tough battle pushing the idea forward. Although, there may be some promising signs in the Technical and Further Education (TAFE) sector. See here and here.

A number of concerns have been raised and at least some of these may need to be accommodated by various modifications to any proposal. These include: vouchers draining funds away from existing public schools unless total funding is increased; the voucher’s value being too low; and a regressive effect on income distribution because those who can already afford to send their children to private school are now receiving government funding.

(Aside.  I understand Victoria has something approaching vouchers within the public system, with school choice and dollars following the student. However, I don’t know how much public schools are allowed to differ from one another. Furthermore, these virtual vouchers do not provide for competition with private schools.  However, it should  be noted that private schools in Australia, particularly the Catholic system receive a significant amount of Government funding. School fees are presently not tax deductible. However, during the Federal election there was talk about it. I don’t know if there has been any moves afoot since.)