Is Public Schooling a Public Good? An Analysis of Schooling Externalities. Policy Analysis No. 842

Autor/in	DeAngelis, Corey A.
Institution	Cato Institute
Titel	Is Public Schooling a Public Good? An Analysis of Schooling Externalities. Policy Analysis No. 842
Quelle	(2018), (12 Seiten) PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Monographie
Schlagwörter	Public Schools; Educational Benefits; Outcomes of Education; Educational Vouchers; Evidence; Educational Policy; Government Role; Educational Finance; Taxes; Parent Financial Contribution + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Public school; Öffentliche Schule; Bildungsertrag; Lernleistung; Schulerfolg; Educational voucher; Bildungsgutschein; Evidenz; Politics of education; Bildungspolitik; Bildungsfonds; Abgabe
Abstract	Is public schooling a public good, a merit good, or a demerit good? Public schooling fails both conditions specified in the standard economic definition of a public good. In order to place public schooling into one of the remaining two categories, I first assess all of the theoretical positive and negative externalities resulting from public schooling as opposed to publicly financed universal school vouchers. Then, in an original contribution to the literature, I quantify the magnitude and sign of the net externality of government schooling in the United States using the preponderance of the most rigorous scientific evidence. While the counts of theoretical positive and negative externalities are about equal, the empirical evidence leads me to estimate that public schooling in the United States has a net negative externality of at least $1.3 trillion--over the lifetime of the current cohort of children in government schools--relative to publicly funded universal school vouchers. I conclude with three policy recommendations: (1) the U.S. government should not operate schools at the local, state, or federal level on the basis of schooling's being a public good; (2) U.S. citizens should not fund government schooling indirectly through the tax system on the basis of schooling being a merit good; and (3) the United States should instead fund education directly--rather than schooling--through a universal Education Savings Account (ESA) program. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2020/1/01