by Peter Crabb

Educators know, good students ask good questions. The best in the classroom want to know more than just the what or when of things. They want to know why.

So, too, the people of Idaho. They want to know why government policy on education is what it is. Parents want to know why teachers are teaching what they are. They want to know why certain topics are so important. Since education spending is a large part of the state budget it makes sense to ask “Why?”

For example, why has the state government chosen to use federal emergency money from the Covid pandemic to purchase a new history curriculum titled “The Story of America”? Gov. Brad Little called this supplemental curriculum “fair” and “factual,” which seems to suggest there have been questions as to what’s currently being taught. Why do our high school teachers need something else? Is the current curriculum discriminatory or simply false?

Perhaps the bigger question behind this and other contentious school topics is “Why is the government involved at all?” Why not leave education to the parents, or the provision of education to the marketplace? What is the role of government in this area of our lives?

Economists have long considered the proper role of government in the delivery of education. At the Center for the Study of Market Alternatives on the campus of Northwest Nazarene University, we continue to ask such questions.

The Center for the Study of Market Alternatives was founded in 1976 by Caldwell businessman Ralph Smeed for the study of political, economic and religious liberty. Smeed partnered with professors from Boise State University to publish articles (many on these same pages) and hold forums on why government policy makers were choosing to intervene in different areas of our lives. Smeed and his fellow scholars critiqued policies that infringed on individuals’ right to freely exchange in the marketplace.

The Center at NNU continues to serve as an educational resource for the exploration and promotion of freedom and free markets. We study the consequences of not letting people decide for themselves and participate in voluntary exchange.

Just as Smeed did in his day, Center for the Study of Market Alternatives scholars often ask what the founder of modern economics, Adam Smith, would say. We look to his insights on the proper role of government. How does any particular public policy affect our liberty to exchange a service, goods or even ideas?

EDUCATION AND THE FREE MARKET

Economics as an area of study was originally about the laws that govern us. When Adam Smith published “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations” in 1776, he and the scholars that followed were called political economists.

These first economists demonstrated how specialization and markets make us better off, and how free trade makes nations grow and improve the standard of living for all people. But these scholars also considered what makes for a good or just society. They asked why it is that markets serve the poor, not just the rich.

Some have read Adam Smith’s work and simply stopped with his economics concept known as the “invisible hand,” or how free markets achieve a good outcome for society even though no one is directing it to that goal. Those who stop reading here often conclude that Smith was a greedy capitalist who cared for nothing other than business. These critics need to finish reading the book.

A large part of the “Wealth of Nations” is devoted to how those in power used their powers to exploit the poor. Smith knew that such actions were not only detrimental to creating wealth, but morally wrong. Smith cared for the poor and had a lot to say about their education. He argued that the government has a role in the market for education, albeit a limited one.

Smith dedicates two chapters in the “Wealth of Nations” to education. He proposes that the government provide primary education for the poor, and that parents should directly pay some of the cost. As with other markets, Smith explains here how parents would then have a vested interest in their child’s education and would seek out the best teachers with the best curriculum.

Smith criticized higher-education establishments of his time as being created and operated for the benefit of themselves, not those in need of education. He wrote, “The discipline of colleges and universities is in general contrived, not for the benefit of the students, but for the interest, or more properly speaking, for the ease of the masters.”

So Smith would likely argue today that state leaders have overstepped their role in education. Government-supported schools should stick to just the basics. Parents with some skin in the game will hold teachers accountable. Smith argued that questions over history curriculum and other classroom matters are best left for individual parents to decide.

Furthermore, Smith would argue that free and extensive secondary and post-secondary (college) education is well beyond what the government needs to do to make for a just and fair society. Smith observed that these institutions often served themselves and created contention in society.

Were Idaho policymakers to follow Smith’s principles today, more of the state’s resources would be devoted to primary education. For secondary education and beyond, the state would reduce its role or completely step aside. Parents would be offered more choice, including the right to have their teenagers in apprenticeship programs or other non-school learning opportunities.

So, when it comes to educational policy or any other government action, we at the Center for the Study of Market Alternatives will keep asking, what did Adam Smith say? Why do markets work so well? Why not leave it to individual choice in the marketplace?

Like all good students, we’ll keep asking why.