Public elementary and secondary education is a government-sponsored compulsory monolithic monopoly in a culture otherwise free, pluralistic and competitive. As a result, the public schools are, to a significant extent, inconsistent with the mainstream of American society. Government schools are entrenched collectivist institutions that are ill suited to prepare young people for the real world of freedom and competition. Consequently, our public schools are now being driven by the needs of The Education Establishment and not by the learning needs of students. The government school monopoly has deep systemic failures that are impossible to correct from within.

In her book, The War Against Excellence (Praeger, 2003), Cheri Pierson Yecke, exposes the deplorable truth about government schools. According to the author, five beliefs that “progressive” education theorists embrace have infiltrated the schools. The five beliefs are:

• Belief in the equality of educational outcomes.
• Belief in questioning the value of individualism.
• Belief in the supremacy of the group over the individual.
• Belief that advanced students have a duty to help others at the expense of their own needs.
• Belief that competition is negative and must be eliminated.

The combination of democracy and free private enterprise has contributed greatly to making the United States a world leader. If the forces of free enterprise are allowed to take over K-12 education and operate freely, as in other aspects of our lives, our nation will benefit from an explosion of learning opportunities for young people. The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris has enhanced the possibility of such a prospect. Just as the breakup of the ATT monopoly decades ago spawned a large portion of the dizzying improvements in communications we enjoy today, so will the breakup of the government education monopoly, through choice, spawn unimaginable learning opportunities for future generations of children.

Unfortunately, to date, there have been no serious threats to the government school monopoly. Although charter schools, vouchers, open enrollments, magnet schools, tuition scholarships, on-line learning, and home schooling have provided limited choice for some students, the vast majority of students are trapped in anachronistic government schools that have not changed in decades. This intransigence is fostered by large and powerful special interest groups that benefit from the K-12 status quo. These special interests are teacher unions, colleges of education, union-controlled state and federal legislators, local school board members, and bureaucratic minions at all levels of government. All of these groups owe their existence to the monopoly of public education.

With monopolies, the worst place to seek help for needed change is within the monopoly itself. If the public schools need to be changed, seeking advice and direction from teacher unions, administrators, school board members, state officials, and politicians is pointless. The Education Establishment has proven it will not and cannot change left to its own devices. Meaningful change will come only from the outside – from the power of parents free to choose education programs from a free and competitive education market.