The Observer, October 14, 2005
Volume XXXVIII, Issue 7
Free Speech Zone: Nothing "right" about column's assertions
To the editor:
After reading last week's The Right Stuff column, I found myself profoundly disturbed by one of Hickman's assertions. In his article, he stated it has been "proven" that private industry, when competing with public institutions, has led to greater efficiency in both. While he conceded that most Americans would refuse to accept his drastic strategy of completely eliminating public funding to key social services like education, Hickman would have us believe that we would, in fact, be better served if all education was privatized. Citing poor salaries for management and property-value dependent funding, he seems to believe that privatization would in fact aid most Americans and ensure them higher-quality education.
This is nothing but classic whitewashing by the wealthy elite. The truth is that privatizing education would lead to systems like those held by most developing nations, not those of the industrialized world, where only the wealthy and upper-middle class can afford to send their children to school. Think about it: the national average for property taxes in 2001 was about $1300 for an average, middle-class home. Only a portion of that, around 50-60 percent depending on the state, goes to public education, so it's more like $700 per person. The average cost for private education is about $3200, and that's with government subsidies and alumni donation covering half of the actual student cost. So each child in the seat of a private school represents $6500 in "revenue," to use the economic terms, for each school. The average for public schools nationwide is slightly less but comparable, at about $5900, but then again, maybe private schools reimburse their "CEOs" more than the public system, so the actual money that reaches the student might be equal. So, really, public schools seem to be fairly efficient compared to their "private" counterparts, and in many states if funding is equal, the education provided is often equal as well between the two systems. The cost to each individual attempting to educate their child, though, is much lower since all of us bear the burden of education for our youth.
Simply nationalizing the educational system would probably eliminate many of the disparities, but this is not Hickman's utopia. However, the conservative right of this country would rather create a plutocratic government that supported the wealthy to the exclusion of the poor (who they undoubtedly view as less deserving) than actually try educating them, and they're wrong.
Ben Strom
Undergraduate Student
