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Feb

22

Government Schools: Monopoly = Mediocrity

February 22, 2006 |

The very essence of government schools is that of monopoly. The unions have stranglehold political clout over politicians eager to secure a loyal voting block. Hence, favoritism is transparently quid pro quo in the direction of providing teachers unions with a monopoly system that forces all taxpayers to pay for it regardless of quality or use. While this arrangement is dressed up as a social necessity, the results are demonstrably clear that, like any monopoly, the system provides a dysfunctional product, with the poorest quality reserved for those with the fewest means to seek alternatives.

Says John Stossel of Real Clear Politics on the subject:

“Living in America, we have plenty of examples of how competition improves lives. The phone company was once a government-supported monopoly. All the phones were black and all the calls expensive. It was illegal to plug in an answering machine. (Installing a foreign device, the monopoly called it.) But once AT&T lost monopoly status — poof! — suddenly customers mattered. Now, thanks to competition, you get a number of calling plans to choose from, and phone calls are much more affordable — whether you choose AT&T or not.

Competition is, in general, better than monopoly — and in this case, the monopoly was already failing. Even if you’re not a big fan of the free market, why would you want to preserve a monopoly that’s obviously doing a bad job? How could allowing choice possibly have been worse than keeping students trapped in failing public schools?”

Those are questions that fly in the face of other priorities that place a quality education product as a lower priority to job and benefit security, to barriers to entry for new teachers, and to status quo creature comforts and perks inherent to the present non competitive environment.

This all comes at the expense of the best teachers and most innovative education minds. Mediocrity is rewarded in this system. Teachers who are lousy get the same pay as the most talented simply because they show up and punch in and out. Some can get a boost of recognition by occasionally securing a few arbitrary designations now and again, but those rewards don’t come as a result of quality output; they come simply for putting in the time.

Again, from John Stossel in a different commentary at Real Clear Politics:

“The unions use their clout to fight against the interests of the best teachers. Union leaders make sure the teachers who work hardest don’t get raises or bonuses. Everyone with the same seniority and credentials must be paid the same. That guarantees that no teacher will take home a dime for making extra sure that students learn. Joel Klein, who as New York’s schools chancellor runs the country’s largest public-school system, put it this way: “We tolerate mediocrity, and people get paid the same whether they’re outstanding or whether they’re average or, indeed, whether they’re way below average.”

Klein said that out of 80,000 teachers, only two have been fired for incompetence in the past two years. That’s because it takes years for a principal to fire an incompetent teacher. I can’t explain the rules here, but you may be able to read a flow chart about them in my next book — “may be” because the flow chart may be too big to fit in a book. The rules are so complex that they ought to begin: First, take a week off from running your school to study these rules. Many of the rules come from the union contract, which has 200 pages plus a mess of addenda. Even Klein, who used to practice antitrust law for the federal government, called the contract a “regulatory nightmare.”

But the unions fight to protect the nightmare. Weingarten has a remarkable excuse: “Our union has actually stepped up to the plate and said we’ll police our own profession.”

I’d like to police my own job, too. And I’ll bet some students would just love to police their own homework!”

It is laughable that average folks defend this system. It seems too many have fallen victim to the endless supply of union and education industrial complex bogeyman-demagoguery. What, they say, “would happen to America’s future without mandated state paid / taxpayer funded education? Education is too important to leave to the unscrupulous free market, other collectivist-types add.

That’s all nothing but a load of garbage. Every other industry subjected to free market rules that put decisions in the hands of consumers has brought a higher quality product at a more efficient price to everyone, from the most wealthy to the least.

Imagine if we applied the same standard we apply to education to, for example, the food industry in the U.S. Certainly the argument, that education is too crucial to U.S. survival to leave to the free market, could just as easily be applied to the distribution of food in the United States. After all, starving is a lot worse than being uneducated.

Can you imagine how governments and unions would handle food distribution were the Government Unionized School model applied to food? Imagine having to elect your local district food board. The food board would determine policies, in cahoots with the National Food Association (the union representing food / supermarket workers), that determine what goods are available in the local food district. Standards for what is allowed and prohibited would also be set by both state and federal governments. Certain vegetables would be agreed upon. Certain Fruits. And certain cereals. Certain Drinks. Other items would not be approved. And that would be it. Then contracts for supplying each good would be procured and likely given to the most politically active contractors, and those contractors would be required to be union only shops, dealing in turn with union only labor. Food prices would be up, selection and variety would be down.

Each family would be entitled to so many food credits so that everyone would be equal in the eyes of the food district.

Imagine the holidays. Halloween might be allowed, but forget going to the district food store to buy Christmas or Easter related items. The same would hold true for Kosher food. Forget related non food items (Holiday wrapping paper, Christmas cards, etc.) conveniently positioned in the same store. With the separation of church and state, none of that would be allowed. You’d not be allowed to use food credits for that. You’d have to pay extra for that at a specialty private shop. Of course, if you wanted something not approved by the local food district politicians and unions, you could always pay extra — if you had any money left over after paying your food taxes.

The whole example may seem crazy, but this is entirely what goes on with the government monopolized school system. Parents are forced to fight it out on the political and administrative level to get what it is they think is right for their kids. Compromises are eventually made, though weighted in favor of the most politically organized and loudest element in each district. What often remains is the least offensive yet most bland form of education, dumbed down not to offend any one group or demographic, and overtly one-dimensional and boring given the lack of incentive to produce anything more than convenience for those leeching off the system.

And then there is the fight to get necessary reform. Pittsburgh City School costs are out of control and far more expensive than a great majority of their peers in the already bloated category of government city schools. Faced with declining enrollment and skyrocketing labor and overhead costs, the politics involved make it nearly impossible to get any meaningful reform. So, the taxpayers remain victimized and sized up for even more taxes, while students suffer as well. Was this a market competing business, they’d have little choice but to make changes. With competition, consumers get the quality products they demand. Owners and CEOs make the tough decisions required to remain competitive. Those businesses that provide the greatest value to cost proposition do the best. Even GM — with its government protected auto unions — must face the music and reform or face the real reality of going under.

But if crappy schools is what you like, then keep supporting the government monopoly on schools: a system that is more archaic and inflexible than old Ma Bell — its dull black phones, “illegal” answering machines, and super expensive and lousy services. We all see what happened to telecommunications once that monopoly was eradicated. Its time for us to throw away the lies and myths of the nanny-education state, and allow the market to provide the millions of specialized nuances consumers want, all revolving around providing a solid, educated student instead of fat and happy teachers unions and government education bureaucrats, politically connected text-book suppliers and the like, and politically impervious education industrial complex ass-kissing politicians.

Its also time to end Headlines like these that have grown all to common to government schools not only in Pittsburgh, but across the Country:


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