Financing Education

Lack of family structure, violence in the schools, and overcrowded classrooms spur a never-ending cry for "reforms" to confront such issues. Quade cuts through the alarming din to what he feels is the real heart of the matter -- the ways society assigns tax dollars dedicated to education, what he refers to as educational finance monopoly -- or EFM. An alternative to EFM, at work in various other democracies, is programs aimed to permit school choice without financial penalty. In such systems, parents determine the allocation of education-dedicated tax dollars, and can select schools most suited to their children. Financing Education examines the major problems of American kindergarten through twelfth-grade education, establishes the causal connections with EFM, offers school choice without financial penalty as a powerful and obvious cure, and examines several American school choice proposals.

Quentin L. Quade is Raynor Professor of Political Science and Director of the Blum Center for Parental Freedom in Education, Marquette University.