More On Why Having a Hammer Doesn't Make Everything a Nail

Cato's Adam Schaeffer takes issue with my post earlier this week about the incredible tediousness of pro-voucher groups' assertion that choice is the solution to every imaginable educational problem.

He actually has a somewhat reasonable point. To the extent that increased choice and customization in education can make the entire educational system more effective and efficient, then yes, we should expect that "rising tide" to "lift all ships" (to offend Adam with yet another cliche), with positive impacts for groups of students we're concerned about. But this is different from some voucher supporters' recent tendency to recommend choice as a targeted solution to specific educational problems that are gaining national attention.

From a political point of view, it's understandable why voucher supporters would propose small, targeted voucher programs that purport to solve very specific or narrow needs, in response to public attention focused on those needs. But from a policy perspective such programs are often much more problematic than wider voucher programs. Take, for example, Florida's McKay Scholarships for children with disabilities and the programs like them that are springing up around the country. They're appealing because no one wants to be seen opposing increased choice and customization for kids with disabilities, and they seem to be working ok as school choice (despite an abundance of shady operators, at least in Florida, that are taking advantage of vulnerable kids and stealing taxpayer and parent $$). But they kind of suck as special education reform. As Andrew Rotherham and I have shown, they don't seem to be solving the problem they ostensibly were intended to solve--parent difficulties getting needed services or out-of-district placements for their children--as evidenced by the fact that parent appeals of district special education decisions have increased rather than decreasing since the program was created. Further, they create perverse incentives for parents and schools that could exacerbate one of the biggest problems in special education: overidentification of students with disabilities.

Voucher supporters promote these targeted programs because they know that there's not political support in most places for the larger universal programs they'd prefer. But it's disingenuous to pretend that these targeted programs solve the problems they purport to when they're really just a strategy to get a foot in the door for larger voucher programs. If they're going to be forced to traffic in incrementalism anyway, why don't libertarians like Schaeffer spend a little bit more time talking about other ways--such as elimination of teacher certification or of building codes that make it expensive to build schools--where libertarian views might have bearing on educational debates? I'm not saying I'm on board with those ideas, but it would be more interesting.

There's a larger difference of opinion here, of course, and that regards the adequacy of school choice as education reform. There's a compelling case that building an education system more premised on choice will have significant benefits, in terms of efficiency but more so in terms of customization and parent and student satisfaction and engagement. But, just as economic policies that improve economic growth overall leave some workers behind, it's also likely that educational policies that improve student achievement on average will end up leaving some children behind. Libertarians like the folks at Cato tend to think this is ok: it's the price of a well-functioning market that ultimately benefits everyone, and the people who are most deserving will eventually get ahead anyway. Like most progressives and centrists, I don't accept that argument, but believe society has a collective obligation to prevent or redress the harms that accrue to specific individuals as a result of collectively beneficial policies: Particularly when those individuals are children. That's why I think increased choice needs to be accompanied by both some form of public accountability to set a floor for school performance and an ambitious set of public, private, charitable and community-based initiatives to build the supply of high-quality schools in underserved neighborhoods.

Btw, at the top of his post Schaeffer makes an odd comment about my noting that some pro-voucher groups think choice is awesome except when it comes to sex ed. Counter Schaeffer's assertion, I'm not remotely confused about what choice means. He, on the other hand, seems to be unaware that there are a lot of non-libertarian conservative organizations--The National Review, Heritage Foundation, and IWF, the organization my original post was about--that do endorse educational "choice" in the form of vouchers while also arguing that schools should be required to restrict sex ed to "abstinence only," which, as he suggests, is a somewhat inconsistent position.