Monday, October 20, 2008

Big Ed bloggers prove wrong point, again

Education writer Diane Ravitch (via Kentucky education blogger Richard Day) takes another in an endless string of shots at free market innovations in education by jumping into the deep end for a financial markets analogy.

It doesn't work.
"I wonder if its advocates in the education arena will stop and reconsider whether they are importing free-market chaos and free-market punishments into the lives of children?"

Trying to make the point that introducing competition into the taxpayer funded education is somehow the same as government's hands-off approach to financial markets (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, ACORN, CRA mandates, Rep. Barney Frank, Sen. Chris Dodd, Sen. Barack Obama, etc.) supports the opposite conclusion from the one they intend. And it just makes them look silly.

Free markets didn't fail in the financial markets fiasco. They were hardly even consulted. Had they been, they would have advised against pouring trillions of taxpayer dollars into artificial demand for housing. Sort of like how we keep pouring trillions of dollars into unaccountable, monopolistic government schools.