Saturday, September 23, 2006

How does Walmart compare to public schooling?

Here's an idea I had, and thought I'd toss out. Partly I'd like to see if my 3 readers (a guess) are paying attention, and partly I'd like to explore this idea: I haven't decided if I like it or not.

Public schools are a bit like Walmart. Pretty much anybody can be served: you don't need specialty schools except perhaps for some very special students (such as the deaf.) There are economies of scale and combinatorial choice in (for example) a comprehensive high school.

If libertarians want to demand school choice as public policy, why shouldn't we demand shopping choice as public policy?

1 comment:

Glen said...

How do we not already have shopping choice? You incur a huge financial penalty (in addition to any extra transportation costs) if you choose to attend any school other than the specific public school to which you were assigned and if you want to go to a different public school, that's usually not even allowed. How is Walmart like that? When Walmart comes in, you are still free to shop at any other store and also free to shop at a different Walmart. Nobody assigns you to a specific store in your "shopping district" and pays for your groceries there whether you like that store or not; stores stay competitive.

So I don't really see the comparison.

Oh, and for what it's worth, you have a whopping *5* bloglines subscribers. :-)