Costs would decline and quality would improve. Through education and training we develop skills and abilities to improve our human capital, which is our investment in the future. The productive capacity and standard of living of a country depends on the quality of human capital available. There is no surer way to guarantee that our children continue to receive an inferior education than to continue educating 90 percent of our children in the public school system. Education is far too important a responsibility to leave in the hands of a government bureaucracy whose monopoly status allows it to be insensitive and unaccountable to parents and students.
Public education is a bad investment in human capital.
At the time of the original publication, Dr. Perry was Director of Policy and Research, Institution for World Capitalism, Jacksonville University, Jacksonville, Florida. Reprinted with permission from The Freeman, a publication of the Foundation for Economic Education, Inc., February 1995, Vol.