June 26, 2018

Contacts
William J. Mathis: (802) 383-0058, wmathis@sover.net
Doris A. Santoro: (207) 798-4309, dsantoro@bowdoin.edu
Great Lakes Center: (517) 203-2940, greatlakescenter@greatlakescenter.org

Review: Is Public Schooling a Public Good? An Analysis of Schooling Externalities

EAST LANSING, Mich. (June 26, 2018) — A recent report from the Cato Institute starts with Horace Mann's well-known conviction that public schools are the bedrock of a democratic society – a public good that should be made available to all. It ends with a proposal for de-funding public schools and introducing a nationwide education savings account (voucher) program.

Although the report begins with Mann's vision of the role of public schools as building a better society, it then misleadingly shifts the analysis to the economic value of public schools as a market-based "good" like steel or corn. The report's conclusions rely on a false equivalence of the civic and economic definitions of a public good to advance its voucher proposal.

Professor Doris A. Santoro of Bowdoin College reviewed Is Public Schooling a Public Good? An Analysis of Schooling Externalities, and found that it improperly conflates the civic and economic definitions of a public good. The report is part of Think Twice Review, a project of the National Education Policy Center (NEPC), funded by the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice.

Santoro's key finding is that that report's imbalance, flawed logic and limited research base render it of no use to policymakers.

While there is extensive research on the educational purposes of schooling, the Cato report's limited review of this literature consistently misrepresents the meaning, scope and implications of the literature. The result is a portrayal of public schools as "agents of harm" for what appears to be an ideologically-driven thought experiment.

Even for those who might be in favor of vouchers, Professor Santoro concludes, the report's imbalance, flawed logic and limited research base render the report of no use to policymakers.

Find the Think Twice Review on the web:
http://www.greatlakescenter.org

Think Twice, a project of the National Education Policy Center (NEPC), provides the public, policymakers and the press with timely, academically sound reviews of selected publications. The project is made possible by funding from the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice.

Find Is Public Schooling a Public Good? An Analysis of Schooling Externalities, written by Corey A. DeAngelis and published by Cato Institute, at:
https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa842.pdf

You can also find the review by Doris A. Santoro on the NEPC website:
http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-public-school

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The mission of the Great Lakes Center for Education Research & Practice is to support and disseminate high quality research and reviews of research for the purpose of informing education policy and to develop research-based resources for use by those who advocate for education reform.

Visit the Great Lakes Center website at http://www.greatlakescenter.org/