The Idea of an Essay, Volume 4

Research Writing 137 will be able to recognize a failing one faster than any government institution can. Underperforming and corrupt schools will find it difficult to survive when the power of choice is returned to parents and students. Adam Smith (1776), the Scottish philosopher and author of The Wealth of Nations, eloquently said it best: Were there no public institutions for education, no system, no science would be taught for which there was not some demand, or which the circumstances of the times did not render it either necessary, or convenient, or at least fashionable, to learn. A private teacher could never find his account in teaching either an exploded and antiquated systemof a science acknowledged tobe useful, or a science universally believed to be a mere useless and pedantic heap of sophistry and nonsense. Such systems, such sciences, can subsist nowhere, but in those incorporated societies for education whose prosperity and revenue are in a great measure independent of their reputation and altogether independent of their industry. Were there no public institutions for education, a gentleman, after going through with application and abilities the most complete course of education which the circumstances of the times were supposed to afford, could not come into the world completely ignorant of everything which is the common subject of conversation among gentlemen and men of the world. (p. 602) Smith’s point comes down to to one phrase: Free to choose. Free the education system and let the public decide what public education should really be. Nothing about free choice says that students have to go to a certain school or use a particular service, and that’s the whole point. Parents and students are free to make wise, informed decisions based on their individual circumstances to fit respective educational needs. Themain force blocking this liberation is the existence of organizations like the ATF and the NEA.. Albert Shanker, a former president of the ATF said, “‘When schoolchildren start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of schoolchildren’” (Kibbe, 2012). Former top officials of the NEA have said, “‘The NEA has been the single biggest obstacle to education reform in this country. We know because we worked