The Best Strategy to Offer Quality Education - Essay Example

The best strategy to offer quality Education Introduction The education quality in U.S. has depreciated over the years due to the strategy imposed by the government. Education is the primary step of any economy to ensure that the youths gain the needed knowledge and skills to improve the economy. Youths should learn to be more responsible thus; schools organization should be in a way that it will promote these objectives (United States Congressional Serial Set, 2011). The structure currently in use has failed to acquire these objectives. The government provides education as a public good to ensure that it is available to every child in the country. The democrats who urge the government to ensure that there is equality in education for the benefit of the future economy support this strategy (Kaul, 1999, p.23). The provision of education as a public good has resulted to the increment of taxes, since the government has to increase taxes to earn more revenue that finances the public schools. The increment in taxes as the government tries to provide more resources in the education sector is criticized since the quality of education available is depreciating annually. The critics argue that education is a social good or a quasi-public good thus it is not the sole responsibility of the government to provide it (Kaul, 2003, p.17). This essay tries to identify the best way to offer education. It reflects on the negative constriction of offering education as a public good while giving other positive ways of ensuring quality education, lower expenditures or taxes and higher revenue to the government. Cons of Education as a Public Good The major negative effect of education as a public good is that the government expenditure increases and taxes increases since the government uses public finance to either offer strict free education as is the case in U.S. elementary and high school education or when it offers subsidiaries or vouchers to finance education (Kaul, 2003, p.56). This affects all the citizens as huge sums of public finance are allocated for education in the expenses of other important issues that are more important to the society for instance health sector may receive inadequate funds (United States Congressional Serial Set, 2011). The essence that education is not a pure public good proves that consumption of education would not decline even when offered as a private good since the parents know the importance of education and would work harder to ensure their kids achieve education from private schools. The essence of education as a public good faces the same problems as other public good in the sense there is free rider problem due to its availability. Accountability is a key issue that the taxpayers should be concerned with since the public schools are non-profit organizations thus their efficiency and accountability is hard to identify. The parents and students are not involved in policy making since the local or central government make the policies. The policy making process ensures that the parents and students are unable to question the schools’ administration on quality education. The above reasons and lack of spending by students and parents directly to the teachers’ income leads to reluctance of the teachers since their income is not dependent on their performances. These reasons have led to many people advocating for other ways to provide education in the country. Pros of Education as a Private Good The crisis in the education sector as a public good call for the government to encourage the provision of education as a private good where demand and supply will control the prices of education. This move will ensure the government revenue will increase when the private schools pay taxes. The increment of public finance and the reduction of education expenses will provide more resources in other public sectors (Hess, & Horn, 2013, p. 45). The current system restricts provision of education as a private good due to the taxes that are paid by all citizens thus most parents are restricted to educate their children in private schools because they will encounter double payments that is in form of school fees and the taxes. The move by the government to embrace the provision of education should revise the taxes to ensure that the parents are not restricted to finance their children’s education in private schools (Leyden, 2005, p.65). Past researches in countries that encourage other ways to provide education prove that privatization of schools is relevant to ensure quality education. This is mainly due to the essence that private schools are profit organizations and their performances are judged on their profits thus they have to perform to earn more profit (Kaul, 1999, p.37). Private schools offer competition that is lacking in the public schools in U.S. thus ensuring continuous high quality education since the best performer will admit more students from other private schools. The teachers’ income are directly connected to the parents and students thus the parents and students are involved in policy making while the teachers’ performances are directly judged hence the provision of quality education (Hess, & Horn, 2013, p.56). Private schools are not confined under strict education borderline that affect local public schools. Cons of Education as a Private Good The aim of any private organization is to maximize profit thus the provision of education as a private good would raise the prices to consume this good for the low-income earners. This would limit the value of the move to embrace privatization of education (Leyden, 2005, p.49). Conclusion Recommendation for Quality Education Provision of education as a public or private good has pros and cons thus it is clear that there is no better option apart from combining the provision of education both as a public and private good. This will limit the monopolistic power public schools are currently enjoying. The public schools will face steep competition from private schools thus; they will have to lay better strategies to offer quality education. Competition will also provide the government with better methods to audit the accountability of the public schools resources. The taxes paid by the private schools will be used to finance public schools thus a reduction of taxes (Hess, & Horn, 2013, p.102). The public schools improvement will ensure that private schools do not exploit parents and students. President Obama has advocated for charter schools to provide competition to the public schools. It is important to use as many types of schools to improve the elementary and high school education for better youths who join colleges and universities. Parents who choose to educate their children in private schools will lead to better education policies, which will improve even the higher education in the country. This move will lead to an equilibrium in the public finance since revenue from private schools taxes would be equal to the expenses on public education. Work cited from Hess, Frederick M, and Michael B. Horn. Private Enterprise and Public Education. , 2013. Kaul, Inge. Global Public Goods: International Cooperation in the 21st Century. New York, NY [u.a.: Oxford Univ. Press, 1999. Print. Kaul, Inge. Providing Global Public Goods: Managing Globalization. New York: Published for the United Nations Development Project [by] Oxford University Press, 2003. Leyden, Dennis P. Adequacy, Accountability, and the Future of Public Education Funding. New York: Springer, 2005. United States Congressional Serial Set. Washington: U.S. G.P.O, 2011. Print. Read More