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Petar Ivanov

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Education "vouchers" solve the fiscal crisis, and also lead to economic recovery?

Simply open up K-12 education to the market place, with government only playing a role by financing the students with a yearly education check of $8000.

*www.usagovernmentspending.com shows American local governments spending $458.3 billion for K-12 education in 2012.
*(Sir Ken Robinson says this education system is a complete failure)
*The new education cost of $8000 education check to 50 million K-12 students is $400 billion per year
*This saves $58.3 billion
*(a $6000 check would save $158.3 billion)
*The yearly education check allows students(and their parents) to choose how, when, where, and what they learn, and also who teaches them
*The yearly education check of $8000 opens up a $400B/year market to entrepreneurs, teachers, and creatives
*($6000 check opens up a $300B/year market to entrepreneurs, teachers, and creatives)

State fiscal crisis solved, federal fiscal crisis solved, and the new education market leads America's economic recovery.

Thoughts everyone?

Related Talks:
Topics: Personalized Education Redistribution of Wealth creativity education learning social change
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    Andrew Wiggin

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    Dec 31 2012: There will not be one single cut that will solve the deficit. Rather, it will be the accumulation of many cuts. The reason that America has been unable to even begin to tackle it's deficit issue is because there is a certain mentality that some programs are "untouchable" (Republicans: defense spending, Democrats: Social Security). Those are just an example from each party, there are of course several more. If we could cut across the board, then obviously the deficit would be cut. However, it tends to be more complicated than that for a government. One does not just simply cut costs.

    That being said, I do not support educational vouchers. They will make some degree of impact on the deficit, but the actual cost to the education of our children will far outweigh the benefit of a reduced deficit. It will undoubtedly lead to a lower class of education, which in the long-run will lead to a less professional workforce, and that will lead to an overall less efficient economy as the economy will not have the ability to produce at the output that a more professional workforce would have. Therefore, over the short-run this system would be favorable as money is saved, but over the long-run the cost would outweigh the benefit.

    • Petar Ivanov

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      Jan 2 2013: Andrew,
      What beliefs do you have that make you feel that parents giving TED $8000/yr for education would be worse than public school education?

      20+ years of research and study on school vouchers have shown the following:
      Compared to public school peers, students on vouchers,
      *Had test performances either equal or better
      *Had reduced drop out rates
      *Had more satisfied parents
      *Attend less racially segregated schools
      *Cost less

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