Furthering the Case for the Free Market in Education

Leonard Read published a powerful 1964 book. Essay The free market in education is to be celebrated. FEE founder Read founded it almost two decades before to promote economic freedom and individual liberty. Read saw how government control of K-12 education stifled choice and prevented a wide range of learning opportunities.

In “The Case for the Free Market in Education,” Read asked us to visualize a school that was completely free of government interference. “restored to the free, competitive market.” 

“What would happen?” wondered Read. “No one knows!” He replied.

Read acknowledged that this restoration was not a fault but a strength. Education in a free market would be an entirely decentralized sector that relies on voluntary association and exchange. Entrepreneurs create learning opportunities and families decide for themselves which ones they want for their children. There would be no need for coercion in education. Consent would replace it.

Read said it:

“Creative thought on education would manifest itself in millions of individuals. Such genius as we potentially and compositely pos­sess would assert itself and take the place of deadening restraints. Any person who understands the No cost market knows, without any qualification whatsoever, that there would be more education and bet­ter education. And a person with a faith in No cost men is confident that the costs per unit of learning accomplished would be far less…The free market is truly free: it is free of restraints against creative action; it presup­poses free exchange; its services as No cost as the sun’s energy.”

Some may argue that there is already a free market for education, outside of government-run schools. Private schools are free to compete for students from families with the financial means to leave a district school to pursue private schools. However, the government also has varying degrees of influence in the private sector. All states have compulsory school attendance laws. Most states also require private schools to register with state or local officials. Some states have more direct influence on private education with different curriculum and evaluative requirements. And in a few states, such as Iowa, private schools can’t even exist without being Accredited The state department of education, or one of the few accrediting organisations approved by the State. 

This is how it works in practice. It’s heartbreaking. I Write Recently we reported on a Sudbury model school in Des Moines. It spent months trying to be launched, but finally was able to. Don’t give up In 2021, because state regulators wouldn’t allow such an out of the box educational model to exist within their state. Schools in Sudbury, Canada, are modeled on the well-known Sudbury Valley School They are located all over the US and the world, including in Massachusetts. In my entire article, I highlighted the Sudbury model as well as Sudbury Valley. Unschooled book. These schools promote democratic self-governance, non-coercive, self directed learning and a philosophy of democracy. There are no classes or requirements from adults. Sudbury Valley is still in operation today, 50 years after it was founded. It has many notable alumni, including an Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker. Laura Poitras. 

Yet, states such as Iowa won’t allow certain types of schools, like Des Moines’s Sunrise Sudbury School, whose cofounder is a former high school physics teacher with a graduate degree in teaching, to open their doors. 

There are subtler overreaches beyond coercion in private education. There are many regulatory obstacles that states place on private education providers. These include those that challenge the status quo in schooling. Experimental models such as microschools and learning Pods may not be able to grow or get off the ground due to occupancy and zoning restrictions. Restrictive child care licensing laws, which can trap non-traditional programs that are aimed at school-age children, can also be used as a way to prevent these types of programs from becoming a reality. These regulatory obstacles are discussed in more detail in my State Policy Network. Report. Advocates in certain states, such as UtahThey are trying to counter government overreach in private education to promote greater education entrepreneurship, and innovation 

A wide range of educational approaches and philosophies will be possible by removing the subtle and overt government control of education. Like any healthy, dynamic market some models will succeed while others will not. While quality programs that respond to parents and students will be popular and successful, unresponsive programs will fade away. 

In states like California, we see the beginnings of a free and competitive education market. ArizonaArizona, with its low private education regulations, has created a culture of choice in recent years. The expansive school choice policies allow parents to opt-out of a government school assignment. In Arizona, and increasingly elsewhere, parents are regaining responsibility for their children’s education and finding the best educational fit. You might consider enrolling in a private school, learning pod or microschool option, working with others to homeschool, taking advantage tutoring services, using individual curriculum resources and materials, and exploring many learning supports. 

It is not surprising that Read mentioned this more than half a century ago when he predicted the positive results of a free-market education system: 

“While one cannot know of the brilliant steps that would be taken by millions of education-conscious parents were they and not the government to have the educa­tional responsibility, one can im­agine the great variety of coop­erative and private enterprises that would emerge. There would be thousands of private schools, large and small, not necessarily unlike some of the ones we now have. There would be tutoring ar­rangements of a variety and in­genuity impossible to foresee. No doubt there would be corporate and charitably financed institu­tions of chain store dimensions, dispensing reading, writing, and arithmetic at bargain prices. There would be competition, which is cooperation’s most useful tool! There would be a parental alertness as to what the market would have to offer. There would be a keen, active, parental respon­sibility for their children’s and their own educational growth.”

Read would likely say, and I would agree, that today’s school choice policies that redistribute taxpayer funds from government-run school systems to individual students to use as they choose are still rooted in government compulsion and distort the restoration of a fully free, competitive education market. Indeed, without vigilance, it’s possible that these policies could lead to even greater government regulation of private education—a tragic potential consequence. 

But these policies, especially in low-regulation states such as Arizona, are showing that they can help to loosen the government’s grip on education, which is the first step in restoring a free, competitive education market. These policies help to put parents back in charge of their children’s education, and encourage the proliferation of new and diverse learning options through entrepreneurship and innovation. They don’t go nearly far enough, though. Read explained that the only way to create a truly free education market would be to abolish compulsory attendance LegislationRemove government control over curriculum and stop taxation on education.  

Read ended his essay with the statement that “myth of government educa­tion, in our country today, is an article of general faith. To ques­tion the myth is to tamper with the faith, a business that few will read about or listen to or, if they do, calmly tolerate.” Today, more parents, educators, and entrepreneurs are tampering with that faith and challenging the government’s outsized role in education. They are seeking out new options for education and building on what they do not have. They push ahead despite regulatory obstacles and create bottom-up solutions for education that outperform top-down incumbents. 

These entrepreneurs, parents, and educators are champions for a truly free education market. We are reminded of this in Read’s final line. “becoming is life’s prime purpose; becoming is, in fact, enlightenment — self-education, its own reward.”

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