6. Milton (and Rose) Friedman: Education Vouchers and State Financing of Private Education

Brian Doherty, “Best of Both Worlds,” Reason Magazine, June 1996, 4, http://​reason.​com/​archives/​1995/​06/​01/​best-of-both-worlds.

Brian Doherty, Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement, 1st ed. (New York: Public Affairs, 2007), 191; Gregory T. Eow, “Fighting a New Deal: Intellectual Origins of the Reagan Revolution, 1932–1952,” PhD dissertation, Rice University, 2007, 151–55.

As a quick terminological note, it is quite common to see Friedman referred to as a conservative, likely because of his work as advisor to Republican presidents (Nixon, Reagan) and presidential candidates (Goldwater). Like many other pro-market thinkers, Friedman preferred to classify himself as a liberal (in the old sense of the word), but later in his life, referred to himself as a libertarian. In a 1995 interview, Friedman suggested that “I have a party membership as a Republican, not because they have any principles, but because that’s the way I am the most useful and have most influence. My philosophy is clearly libertarian” (Doherty, “Best of Both Worlds,” 4).

In the preface of his seminal 1963 book Capitalism and Freedom, Friedman acknowledged the intellectual influence of Knight and Simons (as well as other pro-market colleagues like F. A. Hayek and George Stigler). Friedman wrote: “I have learned so much from them and what I have learned has become so much a part of this book that I would not know how to select points to footnote.” Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, 40th anniversary edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 15.

Henry Simons, “A Positive Program for Laissez Faire,” in Economic Policy for a Free Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948), 65. Rothbard also saw Simons’s influence on Friedman’s thought, but in a decidedly negative light: “And while Friedman has modified and softened Simons’s hard-nosed stance, he is still, in essence, Simons redivivus; he only appears to be a free-marketeer because the remainder of the profession has shifted radically leftward and stateward in the meanwhile.” Murray N. Rothbard, “Milton Friedman Unraveled,” Journal of Libertarian Studies 16, no. 4 (n.d.): 38.

Milton Friedman, “The Role of Government in Education,” in Economics and the Public Interest, ed. Robert A. Solo (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1955), 123–44; Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, chap. 6.

Milton Friedman, “School Choice: A Personal Retrospective,” in The Indispensable Milton Friedman, ed. Larry Ebenstein (Washington, DC: Regnery, 2012), 125.

Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, 92.

Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, 30.

Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, 93.

Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, 93.

Friedman, “Liberalism, Old Style,” 20.

John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, and the Subjection of Women, Henry Holt 1879 edition (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2011), 97.

Mill, On Liberty, 97.

Mill, On Liberty, 96.

Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, 33.

Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, 89.

Army Times Publishing Company, The GI Bill of Rights and How It Works (Washington, DC: Army Times, 1945), 4.

Judith Areen and Christopher Jencks, “Educational Vouchers: A Proposal for Diversity and Choice,” The Teachers College Record 72, no. 3 (1971): 327–36; David W. Kirkpatrick, Choice in Schooling: A Case for Tuition Vouchers (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1990).

Jim Carl, Freedom of Choice: Vouchers in American Education (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2011), 48.

Carl, Freedom of Choice, 33.

Carl, Freedom of Choice, 91.

Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, 116.

Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, 117.

Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, 117.

Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, 117.

Griffin v. School Board of Prince Edward County, 37, 377 (U.S. 1964). The Supreme Court ruled that African-Americans’ rights to the equal protection under the law was violated because only students in Prince Edward Co. operated without the benefit of tax-funded public schooling. While the voucher program was non-discriminatory—students were able to take advantage of the same voucher regardless of race, and schools for African American students were not prohibited from opening in the county—the voucher program had an undeniably disparate effect of whites and blacks. Whites were able to attend the financially well-endowed Prince Edward Academy, which enrolled “about 93 percent of white students” in 1959. Blacks in Prince Edward County had “far lower average incomes, [and] did not have the economic resources to create authentic private schools by themselves.” While white segregationist groups did offer financial help to create black schools, these offers risked “jeopardiz[ing] the desegregation lawsuit, [and] never received serious consideration.” Thus, while most whites attended a comprehensive “white only” private school, African-Americans either attended makeshift” training centers staffed by volunteers, or were sent to live with relatives or volunteer foster parents in counties and states where public schooling was available. Christopher Bonastia, Southern Stalemate: Five Years Without Public Education in Prince Edward County, Virginia (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2012), 106, 131, chap. 4.

For instance, see: Milton Friedman, “Public Education,” Newsweek, March 1967; Milton Friedman, “Selling Schools Like Groceries: The Voucher Idea,” New York Times Magazine, September 1973, The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice; Milton Friedman, “The Solution to the Public School Crisis,” San Francisco Chronicle, March 20, 1979.

Doherty, “Best of Both Worlds,” 5.

E. G. West, “Private Versus Public Education: A Classical Economic Dispute,” Journal of Political Economy 72, no. 5 (October 1, 1964): 465–75.

E. G West, Education and the State: A Study in Political Economy (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1994), 33.

Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, 44.

Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, 90–91.

West, Education and the State, 49.

West, Education and the State, 50. In the second edition (1970) of Education and the State, West used British income and tax data to show that other than for the poor (those who made less than £911 per year), “most people could be ‘richer’ if the state did not feel itself obligated to provide social services like education ‘free,” 51.

Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, 89.

West, Education and the State, 41.

West, Education and the State, 43.

West, Education and the State, 283, 284.

E. G. West, “The Political Economy of American Public School Legislation,” Journal of Law and Economics 10 (1967): 105.

West, “The Political Economy of American Public School Legislation,” 116.

West, “The Political Economy of American Public School Legislation,” 114.

E. G. West, “The Political Economy of American Public School Legislation,” Journal of Law and Economics 10 (1967): 101–28. The following year, Michael Katz published a similar, and contentious, history in The Irony of Early School Reform, suggesting that the growth of public schooling in several areas of Massachusetts had less to do with public demand and more to do with the paternalism of education reformers acting against public demand. Michael B. Katz, The Irony of Early School Reform: Educational Innovation in Mid-Nineteenth Century Massachusetts (New York: Teachers College Press, 2001). Katz’s interpretation was contentious and criticized by historians Diane Ravitch and Maris Vinovskis, among others. Diane Ravitch, The Revisionists Revised: A Critique of the Radical Attack on Schools (New York: Basic Books, 1978); Maris A. Vinovskis, The Origins of Public High Schools: A Reexamination of the Beverly High School Controversy (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985).

West, “The Political Economy of American Public School Legislation,” 116.

West, “The Political Economy of American Public School Legislation,” 113.

West, “The Political Economy of American Public School Legislation,” 115.

Anthony Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy (New York: Harper, 1957).

James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, The Calculus of Consent (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962).

Milton Friedman, “George Stigler: A Personal Reminiscence,” Journal of Political Economy 101, no. 5 (October 1, 1993): 772.

Friedman, “George Stigler,” 5.

Gordon Tullock, The Politics of Bureaucracy (Washington, DC: Public Affairs Press, 1965), 177.

William A. Niskanen Jr., Bureaucracy and Representative Government (Chicago: Aldine, Atherton, 1971).

Educational Vouchers: A Preliminary Report on Financing Education by Payment to Parents (Cambridge, MA: Center for the Study of Public Policy, 1970); Areen and Jencks, “Educational Vouchers: A Proposal for Diversity and Choice.”