In honor of Milton Friedman, a free market education policy discussion

I happened across an excellent free market education policy discussion at Reason Magazine, today, and I thought I'd share it in honor of the man who made, from my reading, the most persuasive case for market reforms in education, Milton Friedman.

Let a Thousand Choices Bloom

If you haven't visited the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation to promote school choice, I highly recommend it, especially given the beautiful and moving obituary for Milton on its front page.

Milton Friedman's seminal 1955 article arguing for school choice, The Role of Government in Education, is powerful, but it is not the most powerful argument I have heard for school choice.

The most powerful argument I have heard for school choice also came from Milton Friedman. It was an empirical argument based on an area of education that the United States undoubtedly excels at internationally: higher education.

Friedman argued that one of the incontrovertably successful places that the United States has provided education -- by both public and private institutions -- has been in colleges and universities. And that the heart of that success is the amount of choice, freedom, and self-determination in college and university selection in the United States and by the American and international students who attend them.

The success of institutions of higher education, argued Friedman, were not just that students chose where they wanted to attend, which is important if people are to freely embrace the responsibility that comes with a strong education. But that colleges and universities have substantial and often sacrosanct autonomy over their institutions, for good reason. While public and private schools generally welcome government money for their institutions, they are rightly and for good reason, very skeptical of government interference or subtantial oversight or control of their activities, largely because the value on freedoms of thought and exchange and teaching and learning in universities are often considered sacred on university campuses, for good reason.

Thus, one of the freest markets and some of the freest institutions in the country also hail an international reputation for quality.

It was an excellent and powerful argument, and -- in addition to many very powerful arguments for school choice -- was the one that eventually swayed me to the idea of choice as fundamental to public education school reform.

As I watch the hubris of liberals, right now, running against the more genuinely liberal tide of human history, which affirms human freedom and genuine equity, at the moment of Milton Friedman's death, I am sad for Milton that he had to die at a time when his legacy was being most forcefully challenged by those who do not appreciate fully enough the power of his ideas or the power of freedom for the course of humanity.

But reflecting on the legacy of a man who stood against collectivism and for freedom, and individual choice, and independent thought when the cause was much more unpopular, I am heartened by the realization that the cause of freedom burns much brighter today, despite the current setback of the contemporary regressive political moment, than it did when he first wrote.

And that, undoubtedly, the cause of freedom outstrips the arrogance and power of those who seek to limit it.

As Andrew Sullivan remarked more than 3 years ago, this is a dark time for freedom.

But it is the darkness before the dawn. Because darkness always gives way to light on the road of human progress.

Love,
Ben