Milton Friedman on School Choice — Transcript

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1. 0:06I need spend no time whatsoever on the proposition that the state of schooling--elementary, secondary,
2. 0:16higher schooling--in the United States is deplorable. That evidence is available for
3. 0:22all of us to see. It is a conclusion that all of us recognize and are aware of. At the
4. 0:29lower levels we have seen problems arise, particularly in the major cities and particularly
5. 0:37in the inner cities. We have seen problems of discipline, problems of schools becoming
6. 0:44places for keeping people rather than for schooling and educating people.
7. 0:53One reason, the immediate reason, the reason that we can all see, is the increasing centralization
8. 1:00and bureaucratization of schooling. Education has increasingly become centralized, has increasingly
9. 1:08moved away from the control of the local community to the control of broader and broader communities.
10. 1:14It has moved away from control of the parents to control by educational administrators.
11. 1:21Now there’s nothing wrong with educational administrators; they’re fine people. Indeed,
12. 1:25some of my best friends are educational administrators. So I have no prejudice against them. But as
13. 1:31in every area, the question is: Is the ultimate task of schooling the children running the
14. 1:41administrators, or are the administrators running that task? Who is in the saddle?
15. 1:46So you have a crystal clear illustration of the tendency that the more you centralize
16. 1:51authority and bureaucratize it, the more it costs you to produce less and less.
17. 1:56Now let me turn to my more fundamental reason. Why is it that the role of government in education
18. 2:03has been increasing? Why is it that the parents have been given less control and the administrators
19. 2:10more? The increasing role of government in education is true not only at the elementary level,
20. 2:15not only at the secondary level, it is also true at the university and college level.
21. 2:20Fundamentally, I believe, it reflects part of a general shift from the philosophy of
22. 2:28individual responsibility that prevailed in the nineteenth and early twentieth century
23. 2:34to an increasing belief in social responsibility. The nineteenth century view was that an
24. 2:42individual was fundamentally responsible for himself. It was up to him to make his way
25. 2:48in the world, he was responsible for his success, and he had to bear the responsibility
26. 2:52for his failures. Of course everybody realizes, everybody realized then, that an individual
27. 2:59was much affected by the circumstances of the society, that an individual who was fortunate
28. 3:04enough to be in the United States could do a lot better with his life than an individual
29. 3:09who was born in India or in Africa or in a less-developed country. So this wasn’t to
30. 3:14say that society didn’t matter, but it was to say that the function of government
31. 3:19and of the social setting was to provide the individual with the maximum opportunity to
32. 3:25express his own values, to develop his own capacities in accordance with his own values
33. 3:29and own beliefs. How can you give parents more power? There
34. 3:32is a very simple scheme for doing so. It is a scheme that is very old, that I personally
35. 3:37happen to have been trying to recommend and propose now for over twenty years. It is called
36. 3:43the voucher plan, and it is a very simple plan. It says you are a parent, you are sending
37. 3:50your children to school, the government is providing public schools for your children
38. 3:54to go to; if you decide you would like to send your child to another school, a private
39. 4:00school, you’re saving the city money--the city of New York today doesn’t have to spend
40. 4:08$2,728 per pupil to school those children who are going to nonpublic schools. Therefore,
41. 4:19the city should say “Very well. If you relieve us of the expense of schooling your child,
42. 4:27we will give you a voucher, a piece of paper, worth a certain sum of money which you may
43. 4:32use for one purpose and one purpose only, to pay the cost of schooling your child in
44. 4:37any school you want him to go to.” I say the city of New York would save $2,728, but
45. 4:46I want to make this proposal attractive to everybody; and I think it would be very attractive
46. 4:51to parents, if instead of their getting a voucher for $2,728, they were to get a voucher
47. 4:56for $2,000 or $1,500 or $1,000. In the usual rule I would estimate that to have schooling
48. 5:05provided privately of better quality would cost half as much, so that if you gave parents
49. 5:11$1,500 they would be able to acquire with that better schooling than they’re now getting
50. 5:16for the $2,700 that is being spent on their account. The voucher scheme would say any
51. 5:22parent who chooses to send his child to a school other than the governmental public
52. 5:29school is entitled to a voucher which he can use for the payment of tuition and costs at
53. 5:34that school. It’s exactly the same principle that was applied after World War II, and much
54. 5:40more recently in the so-called GI Bill for returning veterans. They chose their school--this
55. 5:48was at the college level, they went to the University of Chicago or they went to Notre
56. 5:52Dame, or they went to NYU or City College or wherever they went to--and they were entitled
57. 5:57to receive, as long as they could show they were going to school, so much per month. In
58. 6:03that case the voucher covered not only tuition but also living expenses.
59. 6:09So I do not mean to say that the road is easy, but I only say that first, we know what the
60. 6:14right thing to do is, and second, there is support for it. There are people who are interested
61. 6:22in this. There are possibilities of moving in this direction and it is the most promising
62. 6:27direction, the only way I can see that we have a hope of turning around the trend that
63. 6:34has been going on. So I say to you, go to it parents. You have everything to gain for
64. 6:40your children. Thank you.