Sign Up For Our Newsletter

Commenting on Friedman and Sipchen

There have been a number of comments on Bob Sipchen’s article/interview with Milton Friedman.  We decided to respond to this one. 

First, Friedman claims that teachers’ unions are to blame for the increasing bureaucratization and centralization of school districts, but, with all due respect, he has it backwards. As Joel Spring and other historians of American education have shown, teachers’ unions emerged in response to the increasing bureaucratization and district centralization that took decision-making out of their hands. Ironically, the administrators who pushed such policies sought to copy the management strategies of the private sector that Friedman so reveres.

So the power to make decisions with respect to childrens’ education rests either with the unions or with administrators–but never with parents. Therein lies our biggest complaint with the process as it is presently constituted. Of course unions formed to contest the centralization of power–because unions exist first and foremost for the benefit of their members.

Second, Friedman asks the question whether people would prefer their automobiles produced by the government or by private industry. But the analogy reveals the weakness of comparing education–a social good, with automobiles–a commodity. If schools are going to work like the auto industry, some people will be able to afford Hummers, many others will be forced to accept second-hand clunkers, and still more will be unable to afford anything more than–gasp–public transportation. Ironically, Friedman’s analogy undercuts his claims about equality and fairness that, unfortunately, Mr. Sipchen makes no effort to scrutinize.

Two responses. First off, let’s dig a bit deeper into the car analogy. In spite of the drumbeat of criticism towards GM and Ford, if one looks at the cars that are presently being manufactured today, there really isn’t such a thing as a truly bad car. Aside from very few exceptions, one can buy a car that will be at least reasonably reliable, and in most cases it will be extremely reliable. In other words, even the cheapest car out there will run quite well.

We don’t deny that the machinations of market principles can in some cases be pretty ugly. Nor do we deny that there will be, by definition, inequality in terms of the educational options that will be produced. But we fearlessly assert that the overall quality of the array of options that will become available will far exceed the quality currently available in the monopolized education system. We would like low-income parents to be able to choose a Hyundai Accent as opposed to the Yugos that are presently foisted upon them, especially in cities like Los Angeles. Lloyd’s suggested solution leaves them with equality in mediocrity.

Second, Lloyd speaks of school choice as one or the other. We continue to say that we are not the least bit interested in dynamiting the public school system and starting over. Just as bloggers will never put Big Media out of business, school choice will always exist alongside the public school rather than supplant it.

Third, on this question of "fairness," Friedman bemoans the lot of the mother who must pay for her own child’s private education and still subsidize the public education of her neighbor’s child. Free market ideologues like Friedman would have us beleive that there is no such thing as social responsibility, that we need only look out for ourselves and let the devil take the hindmost. Yet, when my neighbor’s child is educated, he or she has a chance to become a productive citizen with a sense, one hopes, of the social responsibility of providing the same for the next generation. In that way, Mr. Sipchen, we are a nation, not simply a loose aggregation of individuals caring only for ourselves.

This is the social good argument: education benefits everybody, so it’s too important not to fund publicly. Well, if the market can’t be trusted to educate a child, how can the market be trusted to feed a child? If Lloyd is going to be consistent, shouldn’t he also argue for the government to take over the agriculture industry? Probably not.

Fourth, while I agree that the schools have problems, there is simply no evidence that teachers’ unions, whatever their faults, are primarily to blame. The problems primarily stem from a myriald of social and economic factors over which teachers’ unions have little or no control. Yet union-bashing is so much easier than tackling seemingly intractable social problems in our economy and in our students’ neighborhoods and homes.

We quote from the LA Times editorial page:

United Teachers Los Angeles opposes merit pay for top-performing teachers. It makes the firing of bad teachers almost impossible. It’s against allowing administrators to assign teachers to the schools where they are needed most. It’s sharply critical of charter schools. The union doesn’t like having a unified curriculum, and it thinks that teachers shouldn’t have to put up with training from coaches.

In other words, the union is largely opposed to most reforms that demand more of teachers. (Individual teachers, many of whom applaud changing the schools to benefit students, are another matter.)

The San Diego Union-Tribune has a much more barbed criticism that helps illustrate how the union is a huge part of the problem:

Under the calcified status quo, those who are shortchanged the most are largely students of color in low-achieving inner-city schools. Here’s why:

The stale seniority system devised by teachers unions applies not only to salary levels but also to school assignments. Therefore, teachers with the most seniority get the first pick of schools. This means the least experienced teachers are assigned to what unionized teachers regard as less desirable classrooms – those dominated by poor students, many of whom do not speak English as their first language. As soon as a green teacher has gained a few years of service, the seniority system allows him to transfer to a more affluent suburban school.

This rigid system concentrates lesser-paid neophytes in inner-city classrooms and higher-paid, seasoned teachers in the suburbs. A report by the Education Trust-West, a policy group that focuses on the needs of poor and minority students, documented this glaring disparity in teacher quality. It found that low-performing schools in California’s 10 largest school districts, including San Diego Unified, generally are staffed by lower-paid teachers with limited experience. The best and brightest teachers are assigned to schools in prosperous white neighborhoods.

San Diego Unified Superintendent Alan Bersin sought to remedy this by offering bonus pay to experienced teachers who would take assignments in low-performing schools. But even this limited version of merit pay was promptly killed by the teachers union.

Back to Lloyd’s criticisms:

One final point. The American public education system is an extraordinary institution. We have the most diverse student population on earth and we have perhaps the most educated, and certainly the most vibrant, workforce in the world. If public education in general, and teachers’ unions in particular, are to be blamed for the system’s shortcomings, fairness and intellectual honesty dictate that they should also be praised for its successes. Yet, fairness and intellectual honesty were two things missing from this column.

It was our outstanding post-secondary system of colleges, universities and tech schools that has produced that workforce. And in that post-secondary system exists a stunning array of choices, complete with publicly-funded vouchers and fi

nancial aid in the form of the GI Bill, Pell Grants, and federally-subsidized student loans, along with countless state-funded scholarships and grants. And amazingly, not only has that system of choice not destroyed our universities and colleges, we have a post-secondary system that is the envy of the world. So if market forces haven’t inflicted mortal damage upon post-secondary schools, why would they wipe out K-12?