Universities Don’t Own Any Students; They Earn Them
- on 12.10.06
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State Senator Steve Rauschenberger was interviewed by Jeff Berkowitz. In it, they discussed several topics, but the topic I want to focus on is education. Here is an excerpt from the transcript (emphasis mine):
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Sen. Steve Rauschenberger: …Fundamentally, the [public school] system doesn’t work: your class sizes are too large in elementary and too small in high school; …we are teaching foreign language in high school instead of elementary schools; we are starting kids too late and keeping them too long. We need to re-think the whole [school] system, not just the State of Illinois, but the United States… Sen. Steve Rauschenberger: I think you have to do this with the current amount of money that is being spent and perhaps in the long run less resources. |
Sen. Rauschenberg gets it that no more money is needed. It’s the system that is the problem not the amount of money we are spending. Jeff goes on to ask him about a plan that sounds very familiar to me.
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Jeff Berkowitz: …[I]f you could do this thing that I have spoken of before, where we take the $11,000 that we are spending in the Chicago Public Schools per kid, per year and give it to the parents, put it in the backpack and say, if you are happy, the kid, backpack and cash stay with the existing school, but if you are not, out goes the kid, backpack and cash—that scholarship, if you want to call it that, it gives parents school choice, you’d like that? Sen. Steve Rauschenberger: Absolutely. Jeff Berkowitz: That’s a concept you would sign on to? Sen. Steve Rauschenberger: Yes, what is the fundamental difference between our higher educational system and our K-12 system? The real, fundamental difference is that Northwestern University doesn’t OWN any students. The University of Chicago doesn’t OWN any students. The University of Illinois doesn’t OWN any students. They have to earn them. They have to COMPETE. Jeff Berkowitz: [As to] public and private universities, in a sense there is almost no difference. We call one public, we call the other private, but in reality it is just an historical footnote. They are out there competing with each other for students. Sen. Steve Rauschenberger: Absolutely, and that [higher education] choice gives us a system that performs far better than our K-12 system. |
Sen. Rauschenberger would endorse funding the child. He is absolutely correct in how our higher education system has to compete for students. The schools don’t “own” the students and must find a way to specialize and attract students. This is the system we need for K-12 schools. We must give parents a choice. We must make schools compete. If not, we will continue to have a declining education system, an ever increasing tax burden, and an ever increasing government school bureaucracy controlling and holding the children of this country hostage.
