Here’s a new article in Slate by Allison Benedikt:
You are a bad person if you send your children to private school. Not bad like murderer bad—but bad like ruining-one-of-our-nation’s-most-essential-institutions-in-order-to-get-what’s-best-for-your-kid bad. So, pretty bad.
I am not an education policy wonk: I’m just judgmental. But it seems to me that if every single parent sent every single child to public school, public schools would improve.
That’s right. Turning an industry into a monopoly with zero competition has always been a good way to improve quality.
Ms. Benedikt continues:
This would not happen immediately. It could take generations. Your children and grandchildren might get mediocre educations in the meantime, but it will be worth it, for the eventual common good.
OK, I won’t hold my breath. And who says the young are impatient?
Ms. Benedikt continues:
(Yes, rich people might cluster. But rich people will always find a way to game the system: That shouldn’t be an argument against an all-in approach to public education any more than it is a case against single-payer health care.)
The logic here fails me. Isn’t the “single payer” approach exactly what the voucher types favor? Why doesn’t she advocate the Swedish voucher system? Indeed why not go further and have 100% private schools? Paid for with equal vouchers.
The normally brilliant Matt Yglesias weighs in:
My colleague Allison Benedikt has a worthy rant attempting to use moral suasion to persuade people not to send their children to private school. She’s absolutely right. She also very reasonably says that private school should not be made illegal. Freedom, after all, counts for something.
OK, she’s his colleague, and I suppose I wouldn’t be trashing her if she were my colleague. And in fairness Matt quickly moves on to the tax issue. But how does Yglesias treat conservative bloggers who display this sort of argumentation?
PS. I do agree that Matt Damon is not as bad as most murderers, just a tad hypocritical.
PPS. Yglesias also has an amusing post that points out that the IRS treats gay married couples better than straight married couples.
PPPS. This is a huge story, and should have been the focus of this post. Kudos to President Obama.