Consider two possible government programs — ‘Roof Choice’, and ‘Roofer Choice’ — which are designed to provide everyone with the roof guaranteed them by the state constitution.
They seem like they would just be different names for the same thing, but note that the first one suggests paying for a roof, while the second suggests paying a roofer, who might or might not actually provide a roof.
The Roof Choice program would work like this: You choose someone to put your roof on. He puts the roof on, taking as much or as little time as required. And if you’re satisfied with the roof, the state pays him. If the roof turns out to be defective, the state demands a refund.
The Roofer Choice program would work like this: You choose someone who has been certified as being able to put a roof on. You pay him up front to spend a specified number of hours doing something, which might or might not result in a complete, working roof. And there are no refunds.
Maybe you get half a roof. Maybe he takes off your old roof, and runs out of hours before he can put a new one up. Maybe the completed roof leaks. Maybe he spends the time watching YouTube videos or playing Wordle. He gets paid no matter what the results are — even if they’re worse than doing nothing at all.
Of course, the idea of paying someone who doesn’t actually put up a roof seems silly. But how different is it, really, from paying a school to hold onto your kids for 990 hours each year, regardless of whether they’re actually learning anything important or useful?
School Choice is about paying for schooling. It works the same way as the Roofer Choice program, paying for the time of the people involved.
Education Choice, in contrast, would be about paying for education — and, crucially, about not paying for education that doesn’t actually occur.
As Confucius noted, the first step towards wisdom is to call things by their right names. This means recognizing that schooling is not education, and education is not schooling.
Schooling is something you do to a kid. It’s a process, which takes place in a particular location, at a particular time, and which may or may not produce any results.
Education is something that a kid does to himself, with varying degrees of assistance. It’s a result, which can happen through any number of different processes, none of which have to take place in any particular location, at any particular time, or in any particular order.
As the saying goes, we get what we pay for. If we continue to pay for schooling — which is the essence of School Choice — we’ll continue to get a system of subsidized daycare centers, in which education may sometimes occur, although often by accident. We will continue to pay, not for results, but for time spent.
On the other hand, if we decide we’ll only pay for education — that is, if we demand Education Choice — it would change everything. But this can’t happen until we recognize School Choice for what it really is: old wine in a new bottle.
