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Sipchen and Friedman

We see a lot of meaning in this very important article, where School Me! columnist Bob Sipchen sits down with Milton Friedman.  But rather than simply break out in thunderous applause every 10 seconds or so, we’ll just chip in here and there:

“Vouchers,” (Friedman) says, “should have been a Democratic proposal. I don’t think the unions can continue to succeed in making it an act of faith that if you’re a Democrat you’re against vouchers. That’s resting on a pile of straw.

“It’s not going to last. It’s impossible, really, literally impossible for me to conceive that you can keep on sticking to this failing system, this terrible system that does so much injustice.”

Funnily enough, that point about Dems and school choice puts Eduwonk firmly in Friedman’s corner.  (Nobody tell Rotherham, though!)  Meanwhile, what injustice is of concern to Friedman?

“It’s very clear that the people who suffer most in our present system are people in the slums — blacks, Hispanics, the poor, the underclass.”

Which helps things circle around nicely to his point re: Democrats.  From a political standpoint, it’s utterly illogical for Democrats to continue to stonewall on school choice, because those who stand to benefit the most from school choice–and, not surprisingly, those who are consistently favor it the most–are…drum roll, please…low-income minorities! 

We don’t say this to drive Democrats away.  As Anna pointed out elsewhere, school choice is not and should not remain a strictly Republican issue, and the Alliance is vitally interested in making a nice, big tent to bring in as many Democrats as possible.  For Dems, school choice should be a no-brainer.  Liberals demagogue school choice at their electoral peril. 

One last point:

A big fan of freedom, Friedman objects to public schools on principle, arguing — as he says most classic liberals once did — that government involvement by nature decreases individual liberty. But it’s the decline of schooling at the practical level, especially for the poor, that seems to exasperate him…

At heart, he remains a pure capitalist. He would like to see government get out of schooling entirely. As a pragmatist, he figures that if the government must spend money on education, it should give it to parents to spend, on private schools if they wish.

Idealistic, doctrinaire libertarians get warm fuzzies at the thought of getting government out of education entirely.  But there’s a cold, hard reality that must be reckoned with, and it is this: what you want you are never going to get.  Government involvement in education is here to stay, and school choice is the best alternative you are going to have. 

Go read the whole thing.  (And note Bob’s question of the week at the bottom of the article.)