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Milton Friedman on Schools and vouchers

About 90 percent of our kids now go to so-called public schools, which are really not public at all but simply private fiefs primarily of the administrators and the union officials.

Context. From a February 1995 Washington Post article arguing that American elementary and secondary schooling must be radically reconstructed by privatizing much of it, through a universal voucher that lets parents choose their children’s schools, a plan he first proposed in 1955. Just before, he argues that the system has grown worse as power moved from the local community to the school district, the state and the federal government, and as the teachers’ unions grew stronger.

Public Schools: Make Them Private
Column, 1995, The Washington Post, February 19, 1995; reprinted in full in the Congressional Record, Extensions of Remarks, March 28, 1995, pp. 9551 to 9552 (E703 to E704 in the daily edition), inserted by Representative Philip M. Crane., Congressional Record, March 28, 1995, p. 9551
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Milton Friedman, “Public Schools: Make Them Private” (The Washington Post, February 19, 1995; reprinted in full in the Congressional Record, Extensions of Remarks, March 28, 1995, pp. 9551 to 9552 (E703 to E704 in the daily edition), inserted by Representative Philip M. Crane., 1995), Congressional Record, March 28, 1995, p. 9551. https://miltonfriedman.org/quotes/so-called-public-schools-private-fiefs-1995

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He also said

  1. The average income of blacks here is far higher than the average income of all the people in the Soviet Union. The official government definition of the poverty line in the U.S. is higher than the average income in the Soviet Union; it’s higher than the income received by 90 percent of the people on the world’s surface. Now, that doesn’t mean blacks aren’t subject to injustice; of course they are.
    Interview with Milton Friedman
    Interview, 1973, Playboy, February 1973; reprinted in There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch (Open Court, 1975), p. 34
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  2. The key difference, and it is crucial, is that parents—and not government bureaucrats—would decide what schools their children attend. In the process, they would also decide which schools got more funds and which less, and parents who chose private schools would be relieved, at least in part, from having to pay twice for schooling their children—once through taxes, once through school fees. The result would be to give teachers and administrators a strong incentive to meet the wants of their real customers—the students. “The customer is the boss” is the characteristic slogan of a competitive market. Vouchers would make that slogan apply to schooling.

    Context. From the book’s chapter on education. Just before, the Friedmans describe versions of a school voucher plan and say that none of them changes where the money for schooling comes from: all citizens, with children or without, would still pay taxes to finance it. “The key difference” is the difference from the present system.

    Tyranny of the Status Quo
    Book, 1984, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Ch. 8 “Education”, p. 156 (with Rose D. Friedman)
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  3. There is enormous room for improvement in our educational system. Hardly any activity in the United States is technically more backward. We essentially teach children in the same way that we did 200 years ago: one teacher in front of a bunch of kids in a closed room.

    Context. From a February 1995 Washington Post article arguing that American elementary and secondary schooling must be radically reconstructed by privatizing much of it, through a universal voucher that lets parents choose their children’s schools, a plan he first proposed in 1955. He goes on to say that only competition from private enterprise, as in other industries, would bring real innovation in how children are taught.

    Public Schools: Make Them Private
    Column, 1995, The Washington Post, February 19, 1995; reprinted in full in the Congressional Record, Extensions of Remarks, March 28, 1995, pp. 9551 to 9552 (E703 to E704 in the daily edition), inserted by Representative Philip M. Crane., Congressional Record, March 28, 1995, p. 9552
    Checked against the sourceRead the originalRead the source

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