[From an interview with Ron Paul (about his book on education) in The Free Market.]
TFM: How can competition in education provide a better experience for students?
RP: The same way competition in anything provides a better experience for consumers. Competition in education is going to be especially fierce. If the government’s schools are spending $10,000 to $15,000 per student annually, and I can get students a better education for, say $750, how does their business model survive? Inertia, to be sure, but with state and local budgets under increasing strain, how does business as usual persist in education for much longer?
TFM: You clearly take a positive view of homeschooling in the book. But when it comes time to go to college, won’t students need some kind of formal certification from an accredited school?
RP: These days, with homeschooling more and more mainstream, and with the academic skills of so many homeschooled students no longer seriously in question, colleges are less strict about this. Someone with strong standardized test scores, or who gets college credit via CLEP exams, has proven the merits both of his curriculum and of himself. My own homeschool curriculum, the Ron Paul Curriculum, makes passing the CLEP exams a priority. This is a feather in the student’s academic cap, and it’s a ton of money in the parents’ wallets when a student can skip courses, or even whole grades.
TFM: Even with all the growth in homeschooling, the vast majority of students still go to public schools. So is it possible to make a difference with so many still receiving conventional, state-directed education?
RP: We don’t need to convince everyone. Most people take no interest in the issues that drive you and me. We need to persuade a dedicated minority. We need to reach the intellectual leaders of tomorrow from our ranks. If even five percent of the American public were truly conversant with the great thinkers and classics of the freedom philosophy, it would be a very, very different situation.
Remember, too, that the transmission of news and information is becoming decentralized. One no longer has to be part of the media establishment in order to get a hearing and even a following. I am looking to train the coming generations of libertarians to take up this role. That way, we can have an influence out of proportion to our numbers.
