How to Increase Liberty in America

OUR nation’s K-12 public education system is the most bloated, ossified, bureaucratic, hidebound, monopolistic, special-interest-driven example of central planning aside from Communist China or perhaps the U.S. Postal Service. If our schools do not improve, millions of schoolchildren-particularly from poor familieswill continue to be consigned to lives of poverty and dissatisfaction.

In an era of great technological innovation, we never would design from scratch the type of brick-and-mortar, one-size-fits-all system that we have today. We have the capacity to personalize instruction to the individual needs of every child and to deliver on the promise of opportunity that is every child’s birthright. The solution is to apply the same economic principles that have succeeded in so many other realms: choice and competition.

About the Author

Robert H. Bork

The late Mr. Bork was a distinguished fellow at the Hudson Institute.

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OUR nation’s K-12 public education system is the most bloated, ossified, bureaucratic, hidebound, monopolistic, special-interest-driven example of central planning aside from Communist China or perhaps the U.S. Postal Service. If our schools do not improve, millions of schoolchildren-particularly from poor familieswill continue to be consigned to lives of poverty and dissatisfaction.

In an era of great technological innovation, we never would design from scratch the type of brick-and-mortar, one-size-fits-all system that we have today. We have the capacity to personalize instruction to the individual needs of every child and to deliver on the promise of opportunity that is every child’s birthright. The solution is to apply the same economic principles that have succeeded in so many other realms: choice and competition.