In a new book (The
Case Against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money),
Bryan Caplan (an economist at George Mason University and a self-described
libertarian) argues that education should serve one of two goals [1]:
(1) Providing students with “useful job skills or
(2) Providing students with a satisfying educational
experience.
And his policy recommendation is to eliminate
publicly-funded education (at least at and above the level of secondary
education) and to allow families or individuals identify the types of education
that they want and are willing to pay for.
He argues—and it’s not a new argument—that what education (above the
elementary level, which he does not really discuss in the interview) consists
of “signaling”—letting potential employers (or, by extension, spouses) know
that you are the sort of person who can successfully complete an educational
program and are, therefore someone worth hiring (or marrying). [2] For that matter, he states that "Kindergarten through 8th
grade tends to serve as a daycare center for kids while their parents are at
work.”
His entire position seems bizarre to me, but, given what I
did for a living, that might be expected.
(Given what he does for a living, I wonder what he thinks he’d be doing
for a living if his policy
recommendations were accepted.)
Let’s begin with maximum Kaplan—an end to public
education. Those schools that continue
to exist will need to raise revenue for teachers and facilities by charging
tuition sufficient to cover the costs.
Now at some level what those costs are is difficult to define. But let’s suppose that it would be roughly
equivalent to current spending on elementary, secondary, and higher education
(per student). Right now, that’s about
$11,800 nationwide for elementary and secondary education, and $27,000 for
higher education. [3] So consider, if
you will, the consequences of eliminating public support for education.
The first consequence is that children in families with
income less than the U.S. median family income [4]—about $60,000—will become
those least likely to receive any formal education. And children in families with incomes less
and $30,000—about 35% of all children—will be especially disadvantaged. What this means for basic literacy and
arithmetic skills is difficult to contemplate, but most people learned those
things in actual schools. Caplan might
find that unproblematic, but I think it would be catastrophic, not just for
those children, but also for the U.S. economy.
Second, consider the consequences for current adult workers
who have young children. Given that he
considers elementary education to be, essentially, “child care,” eliminating
elementary education means either private provision of child care, or large
numbers of adults leaving the labor force to care for children, or large
numbers of unattended younger children.
(Anyone see a fourth choice?)
And, while this is not inevitable, it seems likely that much of the
burden of this would fall on women.
Third, consider the consequence for preparation for work.
Many occupations do require some—often a lot—of formal education. This starts with people entering professions
like medicine or law; engineers; accounting; business management; almost any of
the “professions.” Beyond that, the
ability to use (and to learn how to use) advanced technologies in increasingly
important an an increasingly wide range of jobs. Even the ability to read and perform
calculations would be implicated. And
making the choice of a career, or among alternative jobs, probably requires a period
of exploration and, yes, learning. And
this is more easily accomplished in a formal setting in which a student has the
opportunity to explore one’s options…which we might call a “school.”
So we disadvantage (still further) children in lower income
families. We reimpose disadvantages on
adults (again, probably mostly women) who drop out of the labor force to care
for children. We disadvantage (over
time) everyone who needs the opportunity to explore alternative cognitive and
intellectual interests as a preliminary to determining what they want to do to
make a living. We disadvantage (over
time) everyone who needs skills (either general or specific) in order to get
and keep a job.
Caplan’s agenda seems to me to be about as destructive of the
US economy and of the quality of the lives of millions of Americans as anything
I can think of. The argument that
education is largely about signaling has been around for a long time, but it
remains a hypothesis being adopted—and pushed—by people whose ideology is of a
society composed of people who are unconnected to each other, who have no obligations
to others, in which helping create opportunities for others is irrelevant, and
for whom inequalities of opportunity can be shrugged off.
I personally see no support for Caplan’s beliefs about
education; even if I did, I would fear for the consequences of his policy
proposals.
[2] He does not explicitly address the issue of marriage,
but it seems implicit in the rest of his argument.
[4] http://www.businessinsider.com/us-census-median-income-2017-9
