"Unless popular myths about capitalism are challenged, school reform
will stall well short of success."
--From the introduction to Education and Capitalism
"This is a thoughtful, thorough examination of the virtues of
capitalism and free markets as a way to organize elementary and
secondary education in a democracy."
--Milton Friedman Senior research fellow, Hoover Institution Nobel Prize
winner in economic sciences
For parents, teachers, policymakers, taxpayers, and scholars who want
better schools for children regardless of their race, social background,
or parents' income, this book asserts that, if schools were "privatized"
(moved from the public to the private sector), they could once again do
a superior job providing kindergarten to twelfth-grade (K-12) education.
Drawing on insights and findings from history, psychology, sociology,
political science, and economics, the authors reveal
-Why schools and past efforts at school reform have failed
-Why capitalism can be trusted to produce safe and effective
schools--and why economics is an appropriate tool for studying how
schooling is delivered
-What history tells us about the government's role in schooling--and why
keeping most schooling in the hands of government does not help achieve
equality and democracy
-How guidelines for voucher programs that protect the poorest and most
vulnerable members of society otherwise work as well as their proponents
predict
-Why conservatives and libertarians should support school voucher
programs
The authors show that, unless popular myths about capitalism are
challenged, school reform will stall well short of success. Without a
broader understanding of how and why markets work, the small steps in
the right direction taken at the end of the twentieth century risk being
swept away at the start of the twenty-first.
