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Subject Area: Political Theory

The Political Economy of Public Schooling - Leonard P. Liggio, Literature of Liberty, Summer 1980, vol. 3, No. 2 [1980]

Edition used:

Literature of Liberty: A Review of Contemporary Liberal Thought was published first by the Cato Institute (1978-1979) and later by the Institute for Humane Studies (1980-1982) under the editorial direction of Leonard P. Liggio.

Part of: Literature of Liberty: A Review of Contemporary Liberal Thought, 20 vols. 19781-982

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


The Political Economy of Public Schooling

William Lowe Boyd

  • University of Rochester

“The Political Economy of Education in Metropolitan Areas: Dilemmas of Reform and Public Choice.” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 2 (January-February 1980): 53–60.

lf0353-10_1980v2_figure_008

The reformers of the early twentieth century believed that the “public interest” should override that of individuals. They argued that individualist fragmentation produced chaos, whereas political centralization would produce substantial economies of scale and government should provide relatively uniform services to large areas. Subsequent experience has shown that although government service rarely exhibits major economies of scale, diseconomies of scale are quite common. The public interest has largely come to mean what is efficient in some narrow, technical sense for a bureaucracy to administer within the constraints of the bureaucracy's need to maximize its budget.

A competing point of view has grown up derived from the work of the public choice school of economists. This polycentric approach looks for benefits from relatively small governmental units. They postulate that the ability of residents to vote with their feet can introduce an important element of competition into the system. This competition can result in more effective responsive governments. A serious problem with this point of view is the ability of elite groups to gain control of their local communities. Having control they can prevent outsiders, especially those of different social and racial groups from gaining entry. These non-market approaches pose a serious trade-off. Polycentric approaches can achieve a certain responsiveness to local constituencies at the expense of injustice. Reformist centrist approaches have equality with inefficiency and arrogance.

The existing mixture of localism and centralism has produced some curious consequences combining the worst features of both systems. A so-called “lazy monopoly” system exists in many metropolitan areas. The most discontented parents tend to leave, either for non-public schools or the suburbs. While this has a long-term negative impact on the viability of the metropolitan area, it provides, in the short-term a measure of peace to the urban school bureaucracy. Recent aid programs for these same metropolitan areas have the effect of rewarding the bureaucrats for this behavior and further insulating them from the consequences of their actions. Empirical studies have shown that educational bureaucracies in areas with growing populations and tax bases tend to be relatively responsive to local political interests. In the districts where stagnation or decline is the rule, district staffs orient to federal and state aid programs. The problems are most evident at lower levels. While board members and superintendents may evidence some concern, lower level staff and building level personnel have almost no incentive to do so.

In the end the author returns to the market, in the form of vouchers, for a solution.