Writing at Cato Institute’s blog At Liberty, Neal McCluskey comments on Diane Ravitch, making the point that while she understands the terrible inefficiencies that plague public education, she remains mired in the “we’ve just got to make government education work somehow” mindset. The discussion is about K-12 (lately I have been seeing the frightful P-12 taking over), but applies equally to higher education. So long as education at any level is paid for mainly by government, we’ll have rampant inefficiency, with the interests of the producers (teachers, administrators, educrats) prevailing over the interests of the education consumers (students and their families). We should recognize that reality and stop hunting for the magical formula that turns lead into gold.