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Public schools are the ones who cater to the large percentage. And have no real revenue loss when they fail to deliver. Private schools do cater to a small pe

Public schools are the ones who cater to the large percentage. And have no real revenue loss when they fail to deliver. Private schools do cater to a small percentage, not everybody in a neighborhood, but a small percentage to whom the school appeals. Just like any other kind of business. Mercedes doesn't say "screw those snobs. We want the masses." Nope, they cater specifically to a very small set of buyers. There's no reason to think there won't be brands of schools targeted at different kinds of students. But we won't know until people can actually make choices without having to pay for education twice. Most people can't afford to pay the taxes required to support public schools and also pay for tuition. They shouldn't have to. In old communist Yugoslavia, the government produced one car for all. Without any competition it captured 100% of the market. And it was a piece of crap. Competition ended that stupidity and hopefully one day it will do the same for education.

_delirium 15y ago
That's a possible outcome, I'm just not convinced of its probability. Unless the government enforces equal prices at all the private schools, via some sort of fixed tradeable credits scheme, I would expect the most affordable schools to be those that cater to a large proportion of the population in a cost-effective and fairly standardized way, and that those would be by far the most popular schools. Essentially, that education would look like many other market sectors, with a power-law distribution of market share. There could well be boutique schools that cater to people with specialized interests who are willing to pay a significant premium (the BMW rather than Civic), but that's also true today. A major difference from communist Yugoslavia is that private education isn't actually illegal; anyone can buy any education they want. Perhaps more people would buy boutique education if the public school system were abolished along with the taxes that paid for it, since their overall disposable income would be higher. But I suspect most people wouldn't buy a significantly more expensive educational solution if a cheap and decent one were available--- not much more than they do today, even if the price gap were slightly smaller. Instead, my guess is that the vast majority would opt for a cost-effective, fairly standardized large education provider. (This does depend on how exactly it's implemented. Many of the voucher schemes being proposed would in effect prevent low-end competition, by giving movable fixed-dollar-amount vouchers that aren't refundable, which would make the more expensive schools seem relatively more attractive. For example, if it's a $6k nonrefundable voucher, there's no incentive for a private education provider to improve efficiency to the point where they can provide education for only $4k, because why would you go to the $4k school when it's no cheaper than the $6k school? So that in effect would put a floor on prices and make boutique schools more competitive. That's not really a libertarian solution, though, but sort of a social-engineering-via-managed-market solution.)
- ZachPruckowski 15y ago
  "I would expect the most affordable schools to be those that cater to a large proportion of the population in a cost-effective and fairly standardized way, and that those would be by far the most popular schools." I would actually bet it would be the mid-priced schools that would be the most appealing to the masses, because nobody wants to be (or be seen as) the parent sending their kid to "the cheap school" unless they absolutely can't afford better.
- chernevik 15y ago
  "my guess is that the vast majority would opt for a cost-effective, fairly standardized large education provider" Maybe, but we can observe: 1) intense competition for admission to the highest tier colleges 2) intense efforts by many inner city residents to place their kids in charter / special focus schools 3) strong correlations between perceived school quality and housing values All of which suggests that many parents are actually quite focused on educational quality. That focus is often forestalled from becoming "effective demand" by the high opportunity cost on private education imposed by our public school system. I don't know how real choice would emerge or how it would play out. I do know that more freedom would enable far more parents to translate their intense interest into much more effective action. It would also deny parents the excuse of poor schools, as they would choose the school, and schools the excuse of poor parenting, as they would be better able to choose the parents. Accountability would shift from procedural compliance to behaviors more likely to be conducive to learning. Further, it would provide space for innovation. And when some innovation demonstrated better preparation for college, or graduation rates, or post-grad employment, there would be effective market pressure to emulate that innovation, and in an effective rather than formal manner. It is likely the case that most schools would evolve to forms with great similarities to one another -- and why not, the majority of kids they're teaching are likely pretty similar on the important dimensions. The similarities would emerge after a process of _finding_ that most effective form, and weeding out the institutions that are providing suboptimal service. The freedom to migrate to new forms would constantly discipline those schools to avoid various distractions, or shift accountability. And it would provide greater flexibility to handle edge cases more effectively. And in a more flexible system, educators would never ask to "slow a kid down" because of the problems the kid's speed poses to _their_ model. They would have to ask how to adjust that model to the kid's speed, lest they lose that kid's revenue to some model that can make the adjustment.

_delirium 15y ago

That's a possible outcome, I'm just not convinced of its probability. Unless the government enforces equal prices at all the private schools, via some sort of fixed tradeable credits scheme, I would expect the most affordable schools to be those that cater to a large proportion of the population in a cost-effective and fairly standardized way, and that those would be by far the most popular schools. Essentially, that education would look like many other market sectors, with a power-law distribution of market share. There could well be boutique schools that cater to people with specialized interests who are willing to pay a significant premium (the BMW rather than Civic), but that's also true today. A major difference from communist Yugoslavia is that private education isn't actually illegal; anyone can buy any education they want. Perhaps more people would buy boutique education if the public school system were abolished along with the taxes that paid for it, since their overall disposable income would be higher. But I suspect most people wouldn't buy a significantly more expensive educational solution if a cheap and decent one were available--- not much more than they do today, even if the price gap were slightly smaller. Instead, my guess is that the vast majority would opt for a cost-effective, fairly standardized large education provider. (This does depend on how exactly it's implemented. Many of the voucher schemes being proposed would in effect prevent low-end competition, by giving movable fixed-dollar-amount vouchers that aren't refundable, which would make the more expensive schools seem relatively more attractive. For example, if it's a $6k nonrefundable voucher, there's no incentive for a private education provider to improve efficiency to the point where they can provide education for only $4k, because why would you go to the $4k school when it's no cheaper than the $6k school? So that in effect would put a floor on prices and make boutique schools more competitive. That's not really a libertarian solution, though, but sort of a social-engineering-via-managed-market solution.)

ZachPruckowski 15y ago
"I would expect the most affordable schools to be those that cater to a large proportion of the population in a cost-effective and fairly standardized way, and that those would be by far the most popular schools." I would actually bet it would be the mid-priced schools that would be the most appealing to the masses, because nobody wants to be (or be seen as) the parent sending their kid to "the cheap school" unless they absolutely can't afford better.
chernevik 15y ago
"my guess is that the vast majority would opt for a cost-effective, fairly standardized large education provider" Maybe, but we can observe: 1) intense competition for admission to the highest tier colleges 2) intense efforts by many inner city residents to place their kids in charter / special focus schools 3) strong correlations between perceived school quality and housing values All of which suggests that many parents are actually quite focused on educational quality. That focus is often forestalled from becoming "effective demand" by the high opportunity cost on private education imposed by our public school system. I don't know how real choice would emerge or how it would play out. I do know that more freedom would enable far more parents to translate their intense interest into much more effective action. It would also deny parents the excuse of poor schools, as they would choose the school, and schools the excuse of poor parenting, as they would be better able to choose the parents. Accountability would shift from procedural compliance to behaviors more likely to be conducive to learning. Further, it would provide space for innovation. And when some innovation demonstrated better preparation for college, or graduation rates, or post-grad employment, there would be effective market pressure to emulate that innovation, and in an effective rather than formal manner. It is likely the case that most schools would evolve to forms with great similarities to one another -- and why not, the majority of kids they're teaching are likely pretty similar on the important dimensions. The similarities would emerge after a process of _finding_ that most effective form, and weeding out the institutions that are providing suboptimal service. The freedom to migrate to new forms would constantly discipline those schools to avoid various distractions, or shift accountability. And it would provide greater flexibility to handle edge cases more effectively. And in a more flexible system, educators would never ask to "slow a kid down" because of the problems the kid's speed poses to _their_ model. They would have to ask how to adjust that model to the kid's speed, lest they lose that kid's revenue to some model that can make the adjustment.