…Governmental intervention into education can be rationalized on two grounds. The first is the existence of substantial “neighborhood effects,”… (查看原文)
A stable and democratic society is impossible without a minimum degree of literacy and knowledge on the part of most citizens and without widespread acceptance of some common set of values. Education can contribute to both. In consequence, the gain from the education of a child accrues not only to the child or to his parents but also to other members of the society. The education of my child contributes to your welfare by promoting a stable and democratic society. It is not feasible to identify the particular individuals (or families) benefited and so to charge for the services rendered. There is therefore a significant “neighborhood effect.” (查看原文)
The preceding discussion is concerned mostly with primary and secondary schooling. For higher schooling, the case for nationalization on grounds either of neighborhood effects or of technical monopoly is even weaker. (查看原文)
What kind of governmental action is justified by this particular neighborhood effect? The most obvious is to require that each child receive a minimum amount of schooling of a specified kind. Such a requirement could be imposed upon the parents without further government action, (查看原文)
If the financial burden imposed by such a schooling requirement could readily be met by the great bulk of the families in a community, it might still be both feasible and desirable to require the parents to meet the cost directly. Extreme cases could be handled by special subsidy provisions for needy families. (查看原文)
In these areas, it would be highly desirable to impose the costs directly on the parents. This would eliminate the governmental machinery now required to collect tax funds from all residents during the whole of their lives and then pay it back mostly to the same people during the period when their children are in school. (查看原文)
Finally, but by no means least, imposing the costs on the parents would tend to equalize the social and private costs of having children and so promote a better distribution of families by size. (查看原文)
Differences among families in resources and in number of children, plus the imposition of a standard of schooling involving very sizable costs, make such a policy hardly feasible in many parts of the United States. Both in such areas, and in areas where such a policy would be feasible, government has instead assumed the financial costs of providing schooling.
One argument for both steps is the “neighborhood effects” discussed above. The costs are paid because this is the only feasible means of enforcing the required minimum. (查看原文)
Additional schooling is financed because other people benefit from the schooling of those of greater ability and interest, since this is a way of providing better social and political leadership. The gain from these measures must be balanced against the costs, and there can be much honest difference or judgment about how extensive a subsidy is justified.……The social gain presumably is greatest for the lowest levels of schooling, where there is the nearest approach to unanimity about content, and declines continuously as the level of schooling rises. (查看原文)
For the lowest levels of schooling, there is considerable agreement, approximating unanimity, on the appropriate content of an educational program for citizens of a democracy—the three R’s cover most of the ground. (查看原文)
Surely, well below the level of the American college, there is insufficient agreement to justify imposing the views of a majority, much less a plurality, on all. The lack of agreement may, indeed, extend so far as to cast doubts on the appropriateness even of subsidizing schooling at this level; it surely goes far enough to undermine any case for nationalization on the grounds of providing a common core of values. (查看原文)
These grounds justify government subsidy of only certain kinds of schooling. To anticipate, they do not justify subsidizing purely vocational training which increases the economic productivity of the student but does not train him for either citizenship or leadership. It is extremely difficult to draw a sharp line between the two types of schooling. (查看原文)
Subsidizing the training of veterinarians, beauticians, dentists, and a host of other specialists, as is widely done in the United States in governmentally supported educational institutions, cannot be justified on the same grounds as subsidizing elementary schools or, at a higher level, liberal arts colleges. (查看原文)
What forms of education have the greatest social advantage and how much of the community’s limited resources should be spent on them must be decided by the judgment of the community expressed through its accepted political channels. The aim of this analysis is not to decide these questions for the community but rather to clarify the issues involved in making a choice, in particular whether it is appropriate to make the choice on a communal rather than individual basis. (查看原文)
The second broad principle is that government power must be dispersed. If government is to exercise power, better in the county than in the state, better in the state than in Washington. If I do not like what my local community does, be it in sewage disposal, or zoning, or schools, I can move to another local community, and though few may take this step, the mere possibility acts as a check. If I do not like what my state does, I can move to another. If I do not like what Washington imposes, I have few alternatives in this world of jealous nations. (查看原文)
A third step, namely the actual administration of educational institutions by the government, the “nationalization,” as it were, of the bulk of the “education industry” is much more difficult to justify on these, or, so far as I can i, any other, grounds. (查看原文)
Perhaps the amounts of money spent on magnificent structures and luxurious grounds at many schools are properly classified as expenditures on schooling. It is hard to accept them equally as expenditures on education. And this is equally clear with respect to courses in basket weaving, social dancing, and the numerous other special subjects that do such credit to the ingenuity of educators. I hasten to add that there can be no conceivable objection to parents’ spending their own money on such frills if they wish. That is their business. The objection is to using money raised by taxation imposed on parents and non-parents alike for such purposes. Wherein are the “neighborhood effects” that justify such use of tax money? (查看原文)
Our problem today is not to enforce conformity; it is rather that we are threatened with an excess of conformity. Our problem is to foster diversity, and the alternative would do this far more effectively than a nationalized school system. (查看原文)
Public expenditures on higher schooling can be justified as a means of training youngsters for citizenship and for community leadership—though I hasten to add that the large fraction of current expenditure that goes for strictly vocational training cannot be justified in this way, or indeed, as we shall see, in any other. (查看原文)
Vocational and professional schooling has no neighborhood effects of the kind attributed above to general education. It is a form of investment in human capital precisely analogous to investment in machinery, buildings, or other forms of nonhuman capital. Its function is to raise the economic productivity of the human being. If it does so, the individual is rewarded in a free enterprise society by receiving a higher return for his services than he would otherwise be able to command. (查看原文)
