Chapter 27: Public Bureaucracy

1. The most debilitating case of public-sector parasitism involves America's public schools. More than 25 percent of students drop out before graduation. Of those who remain, only one in five eleventh graders is able to write a note applying for a summer job at a swimming pool. Only one in five young adults is able to read a bus schedule.

2. Americans worry that too many new jobs are low-pay and low-skill but our schools are not turning out enough graduates capable of performing in high-skill occupations.

3. Ironically, the resources devoted to education have climbed during the 30 years of the system's collapse. While the quality of American education disintegrated, the price society paid to the public-school system to produce one student-year nearly quadrupled.

4. Like all other parasites, a bureaucracy lacks the capacity to do anything but grow and reproduce itself. A bureaucracy - that portion of the administrative apparatus that exceeds what is necessary for essential coordinating function - does not contribute to its host organization.

5. Wherever organizations are insulated from competition, there is little to stop the growth of bureaucracy. The bureaucracy becomes the non-competing organization's tapeworm, consuming scarce resources and giving back nothing in return.

6. The hook is the legal monopoly of America's public-school bureaucracies. Under penalty of law, children must attend schools in their district. Because state laws grant monopolies to each of America's 16,000 local school districts, they do not compete with each other.

7. The only way to cure the parasitic infestation of the American public-school system is to sever the parasite from the student body at its point of attachment. Despite all the claims made for other remedies, no other form can revive American public education. Students and parents, like shareholders, must be granted the power of choice. They must be transformed from captives into customers.

8. "White flight" is the result of both racism and the fear of poor urban schools. School choice empowers minority parents to demand real improvements. As urban school quality improves, there will be less motivation for whites to transfer to suburban districts.

9. Lacking a hook, an organization must behave as an efficient mutualist. Parasitic private corpocracies and public bureaucracies flourish wherever effective choice is denied to their hosts.

10. As dismal as the public-school situation is at present, there is hope. From their daily experience with the cornucopia of quality goods and services provided by the public sector, the American people know the power of choice and competition. Recent polls show that 60 percent of Americans support the concept of school choice.