Over at Lean Left, Kevin Raybould worries about the supply of schools after the Voucher decision by the Supremes:
The problem, as I see it, is that the program was alleged to have a structure that makes it very next to impossible to attend anything other than a Catholic school. Some say that was the reason – not informed choice – that the participants overwhelmingly chose Catholic schools.
But now there’ll be money floating around to finance the creation of schools. That’s a necessary, but not sufficient prerequisite for those new schools, but it helps.
If you want a proliferation of schools, so parents are not stuck with choosing between crummy public or scary religous, then you need at least two more things: active parents who will demand those schools and if necessary, build them; and state governments willing to reduce the cost of starting schools.
One could cynically imagine a scenario where, say the Lutherans, lobby the state house to introduce regulations that make it prohibitive for Catholics, Buddhists, Evengelicals, and secular Montessori groups to start schools. One hopes that religious and secular groups listen to the angels of their better natures, and do not try that. However, history tells us that industries love to use the government to construct entry barriers, so we have to be on guard against that.
So I’m going to look at the Voucher ruling as an opportunity. There’s the risk that the existing private schools could set themselves up as a the academic equivalent of the RBOCs with inflated prices and lousy service (and watch the public schools work out a piece of that action), or we could see a burst of small, effective schools. But the latter means that parents cannot treat a voucher and a private school as a magic ticket. If they want good schools, they must work hard in this new environment.
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