A Proper Response

Some years ago, at the conclusion of an essay on competitive monies and monetary reform, economist Pamela Brown of Auburn University quoted Brian Loasby's statement in Choice, Complexity, and Ignorance that "competition is a proper response to ignorance." This concept can be traced back through several economic minds, including Nobel Laureate Friedrich Hayek. The central filament of the thing is, of course, that the results of free-market competition in the provision of some good or service cannot be predicted ab initio, the presumptions of statists and monopolists notwithstanding.

Today, John Stossel at Jewish World Review makes a vital connection to America's preeminent ignorance factory:

When a government monopoly limits competition, we can't know what ideas would bloom if competition were allowed. Surveys show that most American parents are satisfied with their kids' public schools, but that's only because they don't know what their kids might have had!

Surveys taken in various parts of the nation indicate that the average high-school graduate of our time is less knowledgeable, particularly in the politically critical fields of American and world history, than an eighth grader of a century ago. The need for such graduates to take remedial classes in English composition and mathematics as college freshmen is a well known national ignominy. The persistent inability of college graduates to express themselves clearly and coherently in the workplace speaks even more eloquently about the low standard of performance to which we hold our expensive educational institutions.

This has been going on, and getting worse, since World War II. You'd think we didn't know any better...or didn't want to.

Yet the major educrats' union, the National Education Association, maintains a stout barrier against educational competition of any sort: vouchers, tuition tax credits, open enrollment among public schools, or any other alternative. The NEA's ability to galvanize its two-million-plus members to fight initiatives toward that end has defeated school choice proposals in state after state. It's also thwarted the expansion of pilot choice programs such as those established in Cleveland and Florida. It routinely wins the support of state Departments of Education, which should surprise no one. Today, it fights most fiercely against measures intended to ease the burdens of homeschooling families, an option it has impeded but failed to criminalize...so far.

Sure sounds as if there's something the NEA doesn't want us to know, doesn't it? Which explains a lot about the erudition level of our kids, when you think about it. But Americans don't like to be kept in the dark. When we discover that someone in authority has been hiding something from us, we tend to take it badly. The more important the subject, the worse we take it.

So: When confronted by a gigantic, very wealthy union determined to keep you and your children ignorant, what would you deem a proper response?