Milton Friedman, who achieved most of his fame in the 1980s with the television series Free to Choose, first proposed vouchers for education in the 1950s. Fundamentally, the idea was for the government to give parents a voucher equal to the amount the government spends per child in government schools to pay for their children’s tuition in private schools. Therefore, vouchers are as much tax-funded as education provided by the government, but Friedman believed that they would expand freedom of choice and improve schools and educational outcomes.

Government Intervention

Leaving homeschooling aside, governments often impose mandatory curricula and schooling up to certain requirements, forcing parents to send their children to schools and preventing free choice of curricula. Implementing vouchers promotes further government intervention by adding a new type of funding and a new intermediary, which means further intrusion of government arbitrage in private education. And with the strongest hand to negotiate, government bureaucracies are once again entrusted with the administration of vouchers.

Although not all schools might be required to accept vouchers, all taxpayers are required to pay for them. And as in government-provided education, financing cost is externalized especially on parents who do not use vouchers for the benefit of those who do, in addition to the differences between voucher users and non-users in terms of the amount of taxes they pay.

While government regulation extends further into the private sector through vouchers, additional requirements are placed on schools and parents interested in vouchers. The fewer conditions that are sufficient to receive vouchers, both for parents and schools, the more demand for vouchers will be incentivized, with a corresponding and growing need for schools to accept them. Additionally, the legitimization of government intervention in the education market is reinforced, as voucher users and schools would see in this intervention their own interests at stake to continue to count on government funding.

In sum, it is a mistake to fight for vouchers as a more free-market-friendly option instead of directing all efforts to increasingly, and ultimately completely, getting the government out of the education market. But are we left with no transitional demands on education? Rothbard answered:

Sure we do. In addition to abolishing compulsory schooling… we can battle against every school bond issue, every expansion of public-school budgets, and in favor of all attempts to cut and restrict them, and within those budgets to slash away at federal and state budgets, and to try to decentralize and localize as much as possible. Is that enough to do?

However, the more the government takes on the responsibilities of families, the smaller the benefits for children and the greater the benefits for government officials and their allies outside the government, who are eager to maintain their privileges or hinder competition. Consequently, in order to defend the institution of the family as the fundamental source of education and responsible contracting for educational services, the supreme authority of parents and their full freedom to provide for the welfare and education of their children must be upheld. And yet, only when the majority of parents oppose all government intervention in the education market, will children’s education be protected in the best possible way. In the meantime, politics will continue to pit one against the other through the ultimate force of government over what should be the exclusive domain of parents and the free market: the education of children.