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Cato Center of Educational Freedom Director Andrew J. Coulson on the flaws in the U.S. educational system and how it can be improved.
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All turning now to education in America this -- we're focusing on issues affecting students on the education of our Europe.
And our special series here on the Fox Business Network.
Lifting our -- joining me now Andrew Coulson he's director of the Cato institute's center for educational freedom.
And he says parents should have a choice armor or their children go to school good to have you with us.
Let me ask you for having me on let me ask you this straight -- what is the single most important thing we can do.
To improve public school education in this country.
Well I think -- first thing we have to do is realize that there's a difference between.
Public schooling as an institution and the ideals of public education so by starting out with a question how can we fix public schooling.
You are preventing us from getting to the solution which is to try a completely different approach.
To fulfilling our educational needs and aspirations.
Are right.
Defeated design -- in that effort let's say that I were insistent upon public education in this country because it's worked for 200 years.
And only a -- have we managed to turn it into a disaster and as a believer in -- the fact I -- you finance.
What are we done to screw up and how can we fix it.
While it's interesting if you look at what it's happened to you student achievement at the end of high school for about the last forty years that's as far back as we can go in nationally representative data.
Test -- stagnated in reading and mathematics and they declined slightly in science so achievement hasn't really -- plummeted dramatically it's just stagnated.
The real problem is that we are spent well I think Richard unfair eat.
Exactly -- if it stagnated at significantly lower levels.
Then the peak which is in the late 1960s.
Yes that is true there -- declines prior to you -- 1970 and we've never recovered from them as you say.
But the real catastrophe is a productivity collapse we're spending three times as much to put children through the public school system.
As we did in 1970 and the performance is actually slightly worse work there I'm wondering what -- all about money going.
You know it's it's basically is -- -- college teacher -- Well it's some of it's going to the teacher blogs and some -- total most of that is -- more.
Where does not most of it is going to the employees and most of it's going to be employees -- if you look at the change in enrollment since 1970 it's up 9%.
Just a tiny bit.
If you look at the changing employment in public schools that's up ninety plus percent.
So we've been hiring battery ten times faster than enrollment growth for forty years that burns up a lot of money.
So now we have -- and very straight forward business.
Issue.
How do we introduced productivity.
And -- more.
For the same investment.
Here in the -- first century.
Exactly and that you know it's a surprising answer to a lot of people because we think of education as a very special case of something that's totally different from other fields.
But a couple of years ago I did a study that looked at all the scientific research comparing different kinds of school systems around the world in.
What I found is that the ones that work to the best consistently across all the different outcomes.
Scientists measured.
We're the ones that look the most like competitive free enterprise systems so the more market incentives were unleashed a more consumer choice there is.
The better schools work it turns out education just not that different.
Not that different and -- and -- this mom working.
Well you can see it for you -- -- which.
Switzerland I'm not particularly familiar with your I don't have a real free market system there no not Germany will have -- I -- education system point is they do have great education.
And I guessed at there's a problem.
Okay where there's a problem when you look at individual countries.
If you try to compare outcomes between countries are not just getting the effect of the school system which is why -- interested in you're also getting cultural and economic factors.
-- made -- wish isolate -- maybe we shouldn't be dismissive of those factors since discipline in the classroom.
Family and social structure is critically important because we have changed that over the course of the past forty years.
So we know we're introducing more than variables in the classroom or in the educational institution.
So why should we take note of those.
-- it's not that we shouldn't take note of them it's just much easier to fix a broken policy than it is to transform the culture of America now we've come full -- so which policy do we change.
Well basically the way education is run and funded right now we have a state monopoly and each state in the nation and monopolies don't work any better in education and they do and any other field we need to find ways for families to afford private education on their own ideally spending their own money which is why tax cuts have for education are great idea.
And what you do when you you do that as you create market incentives for schools to innovate and to find.
Better and less expensive ways to teach kids.
So how do how does that work real quickly we have about thirty -- Sure there's a couple of different ways to rent tax credits -- -- -- just -- -- -- -- and that's what you GAAP tax credits to express yeah exactly people aren't -- -- -- -- I got this right a libertarian is calling for tax credits.
You're seeing government is -- -- well.
I know we'll -- back not a good part of the conversation at your shirt other night and come back sir -- you and your polls of that.
