Public Education: An Autopsy.

Overview & Synopsis

This book argues that public education no longer fosters in students basic skills, scientific and cultural literacy, civic virtues, and desirable habits/attitudes toward society and its institutions. The book asserts that government provision of goods and services is usually less effective and efficient than provision through a market system. It advances a market approach to education that includes a three-sector industry comprised of public schools, nonprofit private schools, and schools for profit. Following the introduction, chapter 2 describes the future context of public education, shaped by cultural and demographic changes. Conflicts of interest between producers and consumers in public education and their resolution in the private sector are discussed in the third chapter. A critique of the public-education information system is provided in chapter 4. The fifth chapter advances reasons why the market system provides a superior educational information system. The next seven chapters explore the real costs of public education, educational outcomes as an efficiency issue, the educational consequences of racial conflict, a reconsideration of the equality of educational opportunity, the impact of higher education on the public schools, educational research and development, and the educational agenda and its problems. The final chapter examines strategies for moving toward a market system of education. The epilogue describes several recent developments and their ramifications for the transition to a market system. Six tables are included. Each chapter contains extensive notes in the back of the book. (LMI)