In 1955, influential economist Milton Friedman, who in 1970 brought us what became recognized as “The Dumbest Idea in the World,” brought us another wacky idea—the abolishment of public schools.
His dumb idea in 1970 adversely distorted much of corporate life in the United States, making shareholders more important than the company. That idea caught on like wildfire; however, his 1955 brainstorm was slow to catch on as conservatives would not touch it with the proverbial ten-foot pole. But they found a way to sneak it in years later.
Friedman was a radical free-market capitalist advocating for most functions of government to be operated by the “free market” with little oversight. His 1955 plan was to abolish public education and give families a voucher for each child to purchase education in the marketplace, presumably from the many private schools that would be opened.
How did we get from that situation to where we are now, with many observers saying the recent voucher developments in Arizona mean the beginning of the end of public schools in that state?
First, in the 1980s, Friedman’s followers saw poor urban African American families in the upper
Midwest struggling to find better educational opportunities for their children, so they sold them the idea of education vouchers they could use to purchase better education for their children.
These Black families, desperate for educational opportunities for their families, did not realize they were being used to further the objective of people like Charles Koch and Clint Bolick, and organizations like the Institute for Justice, the Alliance for School Choice, and the so-called Landmark Center for Civil Rights, to move toward ending public schools The tuition tax credits and school vouchers were advocated as a market-oriented solution giving families the economic option to choose private schooling for their children at public expense.
This idea caught on and was destined to be widespread in the country if George H.W. Bush had been re-elected president in 1992. In 1991 Bush unveiled his Education 2000 plan, which was based almost entirely on vouchers. I was at that event at the White House and was able to discuss the development of the program at length with one of the plan’s designers. But the voucher idea marches on, reaching a critical point in Arizona last month.
Despite Arizona voters turning down a voucher referendum, 65 percent to 35 percent, the legislature ignored the referendum and passed a universal voucher bill. Governor Doug Ducey, funded by the Koch machine, signed the country’s most wide-reaching school privatization plan.
The voucher law provides all Arizona families the option of choosing not to send their child to a
public school and receiving a debit card with an estimated $7,000 for educational expenses. The money, which would otherwise go to public education, may be spent on private school tuition or other costs associated with alternative schooling for a child. In essence, this is a defunding of public schools.
Elsewhere, the unrelenting proponent of privatizing public schools, Betsy DeVos, is continuing her effort to privatize public schooling in Michigan. And she has enlisted the support of Governor DeSantis of Florida, in the privatization effort.
These school privatization efforts are not winning on legitimate give and take alone. They are being supported by the nefarious anti-critical race theory activist Christopher Rufo, who is creating a false narrative about public schools like what he did about critical race theory. He called for universal public-school distrust to build support for “universal school choice,” the euphemism for taking public education funds and using them privately.
Rufo argues that “Every red state in the country should follow [Governor] Ducey’s lead, since the law gives every family a right to exit any public school that fails to educate their children or reflect their values.” Apart from defunding public schools, the voucher movement is seriously problematic.
Stephen Dyer, a former state legislator in Ohio and an expert on school finance, shows how the arguments for vouchers are a fraud. Vouchers are often sold as a salvation for Black and Hispanic students, yet they mostly subsidize white children escaping desegregated schools. And while they are sold with the promise of improving student performance, the voucher schools are in fact inferior to public schools. They are not the schools that wealthy parents pay for; most voucher schools are low-quality religious schools with unqualified teachers.
