Bold Vision

The Goldwater Institute ^ | 12-05-06 | Dan Lips

[RonaldReaganFellow]

When Milton Friedman passed away, the world lost a great teacher. But we are all better off because he lived at all.

Dr. Friedman taught us many important lessons. His instruction on sound monetary policy brought about the end of runaway inflation. He persuasively argued for an all-volunteer military, helping end the draft. But, one of Friedman’s most groundbreaking ideas concerned education. In 1955, he published “The Role of Government in Education,” in which he laid out a vision for education that would transfer control from the government to parents:

Governments could require a minimum level of education which they could finance by giving parents vouchers redeemable for a specified maximum sum per child per year if spent on “approved” educational services. Parents would then be free to spend this sum and any additional sum on purchasing educational services from an “approved” institution of their own choice. The educational services could be rendered by private enterprises operated for profit, or by non-profit institutions of various kinds.

More than fifty years after Milton Friedman first proposed school vouchers, the idea is finally becoming a reality. Today, seven states and Washington, D.C., have limited school voucher programs. Seven more states now provide tax incentives for private education, a similar policy mechanism. By next year, as many as 150,000 children will attend a school of their parents’ choice through programs inspired by Friedman’s original voucher idea.

As Milton Friedman’s ideas on education continue to gain adherents, even more students and their families will have reason to be thankful for his bold vision of freedom and determination to implement it.

Dan Lips is an Education Analyst at the Heritage Foundation and a Goldwater Institute Senior Fellow.

[samtheman]

This is one of the big dissappointments of Bush. That he didn't put vouchers center stage on his domestic policy agenda.