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Sending your kids to private school doesn't make you a bad person

Melanie Stetson Freeman | The Christian Science Monitor | Getty Images

Allison Benedikt has a provocative essay on Slate arguing that sending your kids to private school makes you a "bad person."

Her argument isn't quite as outrageous as it might seem. Benedikt says that parents sending their children to private schools are "ruining-one-of-our-nation's-most-essential-institutions-in-order-to-get-what's-best-for-your-kids." The idea is that public schools are damaged when parents choose to send their kids to private schools.

I wish I could flesh out her claims more but that's about all there is.

See for yourself:



There's a bit of underpants gnoming going on here.

First step: get all the children into public schools.

Second: ???

Third: better public schools.

The reason why Benedikt doesn't do a better job explaining how her plan would work is that it wouldn't. Benedikt's premise that creating a public school monopoly would improve education is demonstrably wrong. Monopoly education would, like every monopoly known in the history of humanity, produce a poorer quality product at greater cost. Competition improves education.


More recent studies show exactly the same thing. A 2011 study looked at the effects of a Florida program that provides tax credits to corporations that fund private school scholarships for students from low-income families. These scholarships mean that public schools have to compete for students with the private schools. The study found that test scores improved at public schools threatened by competition.

In other words, the facts are exactly the opposite of what Benedikt supposes. Private schools don't undermine public schools—they improve them. Which means that parents who choose to send their kids to private schools aren't bad people—they are performing a verifiable public good.

Full disclosure: I attended a private Catholic school until fourth grade, when I convinced my parents to let me attend our local public school.

—By CNBC's John Carney. Follow me on Twitter @Carney