The Honorable Governor Gary Johnson;

My name is Eric Husman. I am a graduate of the Albuquerque Academy, class of 1982. I have a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from New Mexico State University, with minors in Mathematics and Economics. I also have 30 credits towards a Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering. I have supervised numerous skilled technicians, written operating instructions, managed millions of dollars' worth of projects.

Yet, if I understand the law correctly, I am not qualified to teach high school students because I am not licensed or a member of any teacher's union.

We can go back into the literature of economics over 200 years and find that almost every student of economics, from Adam Smith to Milton Friedman, has found that occupational licensure is no more than a barrier to entry, a chain on competition, working to the detriment of society. Smith famously said, "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices...the law ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary." Licensure is, of course, a law which renders them necessary. Smith continued, "The pretence that [licenses] are necessary for the better government of the trade, is without any foundation. The real and effectual discipline which is exercised over a workman is not that of his [license], but that of his customers." Yet, when it comes to certain "morally superior" professions like law, medicine, and teaching, we abandon basic principles and accept less service at higher prices, with no discernible improvement in the quality of that service. Smith commented on this supposed morality, "I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good," the key word being "affected". I can, if you wish, produce scholarly research from Dr. Friedman in which he shows that the medical profession is not improved by the AMA's monopoly - and is probably diminished by it - and by other researchers showing that the legal profession is not improved by their monopoly. It should also be noted that the AMA and the Bar hold real monopolies, not the fake, Microsoft-like bogeymen that are frequently trotted out to frighten otherwise reasonable people.

Why then do we accept these limitations, which are so obviously the result of privilege-seeking from the members of the respective guilds? The problem, I would like to suggest, is not on their part; it is rather on ours. We grant those monopolies, and we can revoke them. In fact, if we follow Thomas Jefferson, we are morally obligated to revoke them: "... when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce [citizens] under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security." As you shall see, many other observers agree that a public monopoly on education is such despotism, and the time is at hand to throw off such government.

The public school system has become a real monopoly, run for the exclusive benefit of teachers and their unions. It is, at its foundation, a socialist institution. We may look back to the writing of French Assemblymen and journalist Frederic Bastiat to see that the warnings about socialistic public education are not new under the sun. In his day, ca. 1848, Bastiat saw that a significant threat to freedom was the teaching of classical civilizations - Greece and Rome - as superior because implicit in the classical view was the idea that "social order is a creation of the legislator - a lamentable principle that opens up a limitless field for the imagination and is nothing but the perpetual rebirth of socialism. For if society is something invented, who does not wish to be its inventor?" He continues, citing the work of M. Thier on secondary education in 1844 (see if this does not look familiar!):

Public education is perhaps the greatest concern of a civilized nation; and, for this reason, control over it is the foremost objective of political parties.

Bastiat comments, "It seems that the conclusion to draw from this is that a nation that does not want to be the prey of political parties should hasten to abolish public education, that is, education by the state, and to proclaim freedom of education .... And why do political parties aspire to take over the direction of education? Because they know the saying of Leibnitz: 'Make me the master of education, and I will undertake to change the world." John Stuart Mill also recognized this problem: "A general state education is a mere contrivance for molding people to be exactly like one another; and as the mold in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant power in the government . . . it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by natural tendency to one over the body." This principle was well known to Lenin and Hitler; we are simply hiding our heads in the sand if we do not also recognize it. Let us overthrow their type of governance as Jefferson suggests.

I am writing this letter to offer my support for your attempt to introduce choice in education. I have reservations about the voucher system, but in the absence of any serious alternative, I believe that vouchers are perhaps the best answer that we have, at present. In spite of my reservations, however, I admire the courage which you have shown in facing the strong, emotional, but fundamentally mistaken opposition to this idea.

The ideological bankruptcy of your opponents is showing through. The level of argument presented by them is either laughable or frightening. Which it is, I cannot tell.

One obvious self-contradiction which I have noted is that they say, on one hand, that there are no alternatives - private, parochial, or whatever - to absorb the diaspora from public schools. On the other hand, they say that vouchers will drain schools of much-needed funding. Well - which is it? Are there too few alternatives to public schools, or too many? Not recognizing their own inconsistency, or perhaps taking a cue from the President, opponents of vouchers argue both sides of the issue.

If there are too few alternatives, then students will have no choice but to return to the public schools which have been failing to educate them. The voucher money will return to the public schools with the students turned away from private institutions, and the defenders of the status quo will get what they claim is best, anyhow. If, however, there are many alternatives, then why should we be concerned? I trust that parents will choose the best educational value for their children, and the money will be therefore better spent than it is now. It need not be said that proponents of the status quo, true to their socialist nature, do not trust parents to make the proper choices. This sentiment was best expressed by the president, who so recently said concerning our tax money, "We could give it all back to you and hope you spend it right. But...if you don't spend it right..."

That public schools are failing is neither guess, nor exaggeration: it is a well-known fact that significant, even alarming, numbers of college students are having to resort first to remedial classes to cover the ground which should have been covered in high school. Even more alarming is the number of students that drop out of school and never have a chance to take remedial college classes. When the teachers unions try to alarm us with the possibility that some private schools might go broke and close their doors, they are intentionally distracting us from the fact that public schools have already failed, and yet have not shut their doors. Which is the greater tragedy?

But this argument of not having alternatives is, of course, ridiculous. We would not expect that there would be many competitors to a business which offers its services for free, would we? But because the public schools are funded by tax dollars, they are able to offer the illusion of a free service. Parents, recognizing that they have to pay those taxes regardless of whether they send their children to public or private schools, see that it is in their own best interest to send them to public schools. It is revelational, then, when we note that alternatives come to exist in the face of this "competitor" - it indicates the failure of public schools to provide education, even at zero cost.

The alternatives - private schools, parochial schools, home-schooling - are available only to a select few, and under restricted circumstances. Private schools are available mostly to the wealthy, as discussed in greater detail below. Parochial schools are available only when (1) the parents do not object to the basic philosophy taught at the school, and (2) the voluntary charitable support, i.e. the congregation, is substantial enough to support the school. Home schooling is only available to those parents who have the time, financial support, and knowledge to provide it. Obviously, this limits the numbers of people that are able to take advantage of these alternatives.

By placing public schools on an even playing field with private, parochial, and home schooling, more people will be able to take advantage of other alternatives. There are two reasons for this: first, the illusion of "free" public education will be shattered, and second, rise of competition will provide the alternatives.

That public education is not free is quite obvious. First, we know how much money is already spent on it. Assuming that the state is not simply printing money, or obtaining that money by holding car washes and bake sales, we conclude that it must be coming from taxpayers. Second, proponents of the status quo frequently insist that the solution to the myriad problems cited in public education systems is: "more" money. "More" money implies that "some" is already being spent. "Some" is an understatement, as in, "some public employee unions are corrupt organizations", or "some Republicans Congressmen have dropped their calls for term limits". And nevermind the fact that real, pre-capita investment in the schools has been increasing without any substantial improvement.

When public schools must then compete for the voucher-bearing students, they will quickly find that they must set priorities in their budgets. No longer will they be able to hire teachers, and expand the gymnasium, and add social programs, and field a varsity, JV, and Frosh football team with new uniforms and tackle dummies, and field a band, and add dozens of administrators to run feel-good programs. They will have to make choices which attract students, and that will put the emphasis back on what attracts them. Perhaps some parents will choose schools which invest in computers and math teachers. Others will choose schools with the best band, music, and arts programs. Others will choose schools with excellent athletic programs. I have no objection to those choices, nor do I consider myself able to dictate them: if I did, I would favor central planning. But whatever the choices made, the schools will be forced to prioritize their budgets, which they either have not done, or have done very poorly up until now.

There is no magic which makes a public school administrator better able to provide the most education at the lowest price. This will be the standard by which schools will succeed or fail: per-unit service, or "value". Schools that provide it will attract students and their vouchers, and schools that do not will not. The monopoly power that public schools had over the public purse will disappear. With that in mind, it should be obvious to anyone that many people have their own ideas about how to provide this. Many entrepreneurs will fail, but some will succeed, and profit handsomely. Those that succeed will be emulated by others. Why? Because those "others" want to make money, too. That is how free enterprise works.

Public schools, on the other hand, fail. But those that obtain the highest budgets are emulated by others. What we have are thousands of schools that all succeed in spending more and more money - especially on administration - but failing to provide education. Since we don't close the doors on them, as we should, they are not recognized as failures, but that is what they are.

There are two points to make about the profit incentive. First, the belief that public school administrators and proponents are somehow enlightened, freed from the profit incentive, is false. Profit may not only be measured in dollars and cents; it may equally be in the form of the pleasure of teaching students, or in the power to control large public budgets, the security of permanent employment no matter how incompetent, or to associate with political leaders. We can look at people like former teacher Pete Domenici, or White House intern Monica Lewinsky to see that people profit from their jobs for different reasons besides money. This is what economists James Buchanan (not to be confused with the protectionist Republican presidential candidate) and Gary Becker have shown in their work - that there are non-monetary rewards that must be considered every bit as much as monetary profits.

The second point to make about the profit incentive is that under the free enterprise system, the only way to make money is to provide customers with what they want. In that regard, we see that profit is a good thing; it shows that those who make the best deals for their customers are rewarded the most. As consumers, we are the best judges as to what is the best deal for our personal needs, and we fully know the value we are getting for our money. Profit also provides information to competitors; it says, "this person must be doing something right," and attracts others into that industry, or challenges competitors within that industry to match or beat those successful methods.

Please note that I am not arguing that all profit, regardless of the means of obtaining it, is beneficial. I regard fraud as something that should still be against the law under the free enterprise system, and those who profit by fraud - "fly-by-night" operators - should be punished under the law. This is the proper function of a government - to protect our property from theft and fraud.

To look at the profit incentive another way - forget the money involved in a transaction. Money is simply an expeditious means of trading one's labor for that of another. We cannot expect that apple farmers would need the services of, say, electrical engineers or roofing contractors nearly as often as we need apples, so cash is simply an expeditious tool. It allows us to each pursue different professions, and then trade the fruits of our labor by a common means. Customers of a business know it, too, which is probably why we frequently say, "thank you" when receiving help at places of business, even though we are giving them our money. We realize that the food, goods, or services that we are getting are worth as much as or more to us than the money itself is (you can't eat money, after all), while the businessman knows that the money is worth more to him than the goods (he can only eat so many apples). Therefore, free trade is merely a way of exchanging labor - what we might also call cooperation. The person who cooperates best, cooperates most. His reward just happens to be measured in monetary form.

This point about the existence of alternatives is particularly educational about the science of economics. It instructs us first of all that what may be true for an individual is frequently not true for a society. An individual goes to the market to buy corn; she finds that the price is fixed, and that the quantity available for purchase is arbitrary. However, when everyone decides to buy corn, we find that the price rises, and that the total amount of corn is, at any given time, fixed. More people buying, prices rise, corn becomes more scarce. Farmers, seeing this trend, will probably plant more corn in future crops, which will eventually return the cost of corn closer to its original level.

Now apply that principle to education. When one person in the current system can afford to go to a private school, he finds that the price appears to be fixed, and that the number of slots available are sufficient. But when many people decide to go to private schools, they will find that at first, the number of slots will be very limited, and the competition to get those slots will be intense. This competition will drive up the price, an outcome which may take place in either a monetary form (higher tuition) or non-monetary form (emphasis on backroom dealing, networking, "who you know"). But then entrepreneurs rush to capture their business by providing those services. As more competitors enter the field, the costs will fall, the number of alternatives will increase, and the quality of education will increase.

Another argument fielded by the status quo crowd: that vouchers only benefit the rich. This is usually stated flat out, with no support. It is as if the defenders of the status quo - quite probably, teachers and education officials - don't even know the methods of basic scientific method, e.g., providing evidence to support a thesis. Occasionally, the person making this argument offers the evidence that most private schools are populated by the scions of the wealthy. Unfortunately, this argument works more against than for them.

That wealthy families are much more likely send their children to private schools than poor families is obvious. This is true *now*, under the present system. Anyone who offers this argument is either arguing from dishonesty or ignorance. They are either dishonestly arguing that vouchers will cause what already exists, or they are unaware that private schools already exist and are patronized by wealthier people. It is not surprising that the people making this ridiculous argument are either public education administrators, or worse, politicians.

Take the income of any person, subtract the federal taxes, FICA taxes, the employer's contribution, state income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, gasoline taxes, excise taxes, the cost of regulatory compliance, the cost of uncertainty stemming from attempting to understand a 90,000 page federal code of regulations, and you have their disposable income. Now subtract the cost of housing, food and water, clothing, health care, and transportation. Education expenses must be paid out of whatever is left. Clearly, only the wealthy can afford private education.

Vouchers change that, by essentially extending a family's disposable income for the purpose of educating their children. If the voucher only covers part of the cost, then it enables middle class families to have the same educational advantages of wealthy families. If the voucher covers the entire cost for each pupil, then it extends to poor families the same advantages of the wealthy. The wealthy, then, will be able to afford private education whether or not vouchers exist, while poor families can only afford it with vouchers. In other words, vouchers help the middle class and poor more than they help the wealthy, especially if they are means-tested. Of course, reducing the burden imposed by taxation and regulation would increase disposable income, and render the voucher less necessary to close this gap, but that is another discussion.

Another argument offered in favor of the status quo: that private schools will be able to "cream" the crop. That is, that private schools will take the honor students, and perhaps the average students, and leave only the troubled students to the public schools. These are the students that require the most resources, especially in terms of professional staff. The empirical evidence, however, indicates that this argument is also false.

Entrepreneurs have proven themselves very capable of taking on troubled kids. These are especially motivated people, driven by both monetary profit incentive and personal ambitions to attend to the special needs of certain kids. Schools dedicated to serving these needs will be particularly profitable, and therefore attractive, if only because the parents are so much more willing to pay for solutions for their children's problems. There are also a variety of private, non-profit groups that are already active in this market. Privately funded vouchers have been announced in places like Texas and Ohio. In addition, recent research in the Cleveland voucher experiment shows that while slightly less "special needs" students attended private schools (11% as opposed to 18%), fewer accelerated students attended, also.

But there are some other points which I have not seen raised. First of all, teachers should note that the competition for their services provided by private and parochial schools enabled by vouchers will raise their value. That means that teacher pay should increase due to vouchers.

It should also be recognized that the ratio of administrators to teachers is likely to fall drastically. Public institutions tend to be extremely top-heavy with administrators, chiefs of staff, deputy assistants, and so on. Private, for-profit schools will seek to trim those aspects of the institution which do not add value, and the public schools will be forced to follow suit or lose their customer base. In this light, the proportion of receipts going to each school is likely to be directed more toward teachers with proven teaching skills.

On a more radical note: For those people who believe that the earth is being threatened by the ravages caused by overpopulation, school choice programs should also be appealing. I believe that the current proposal is to make vouchers available on a means-tested basis. The key thing is the end of the public school monopoly, for once that occurs, private alternatives will begin to come back. We will then see more middle class parents sending their students to private school. Therefore, both middle-class and wealthy parents will be made more aware of, and accountable to the cost of their children. Up until now, the cost of educating children has been socialized, spread out among everyone. When more people are being made to pay for the education of their own children, they will weigh those costs more than before. The likely outcome is that they will bear fewer children - while the result will not be dramatic, it will occur. We are frequently told that we should each do every thing that we can to reduce our burden on the environment - perhaps this is one of those things, albeit very little. Just something to think about.

A perhaps even more important outcome of the voucher program will be to return education from its socialist purgatory. While socialism has been all but forgotten in the rest of the world, it holds fast within the institution of education. Like any organization, it tends to reinforce the concepts that are most fundamental within its cultural philosophy. The culture of education is fundamentally socialist, and that is precisely what they teach. The teach nihilism, public resolution of problems, command allocation of resources, and all manner of other bogus theories that are diametrically opposed to the principles upon which this and every free society are grounded: individual freedom, responsibility for oneself, private property, and free exchange of ideas. Gone are reading, writing, and arithmetic, not to mention logic, reason, history, science, and respect for those portions of our heritage embedded within the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Frederic Bastiat recognized the tendency of educational institutions to do away with reason and independent thought, and to preach conformity. In writing about this, he investigates the subject of unity: "There are two kinds of unity. One is a point of departure. It is imposed by force, by those who momentarily have force at their command. The other is an end result, the great consummation of human perfectibility. It results from the natural gravitation of men's minds toward the truth. The first kind of unity is based on contempt for the human race, and despotism is its instrument. Robespierre was a proponent of this kind of unity when he said: 'Now that I have made the Republic, I am going to set about making republicans.' Napoleon was a partisan of this kind of unity when he said: 'I love war, and I will make all Frenchmen warriors.'" The teacher's unions and public education administrators are partisans of this kind when they rail against anything that might allow one student to have an advantage over any other: better to not provide something than to provide it to a few, they say. Thus their opposition to charter schools, voucher programs, and merit-based compensation, and their support of social promotion, multiculturalism (a euphemism for nihilism), and such cockamamie theories as esteem-based mathematics curriculum.

More frightening is the fact that the federal government parrots this very line. At the Department of Education website, http://www.ed.gov/Speeches/09-1997/part1.html, a paper by Secretary Richard Riley (and therefore, an official publication of the Federal Government and policy of the current administration) begins, "Quality public schools are the foundation of a democracy and a free enterprise economic system." Thus begins the indoctrination; it proceeds with a section entitled "Vouchers Threaten the Fundamental Mission of Public Education." The section begins, "Using public tax dollars for private school vouchers fundamentally undermines 200 years of public education in America. As Neil Postman has suggested in his book The End of Education," ...public education does not serve the public. It creates the public." Why should the federal government take a stand on this issue? Are they not supposed to be the servants, rather than the masters, of American citizens. The Postman quote is a chilling reminder of Bastiat's observation that classical theory teaches that social order is the creation of the legislator, a mistaken and dangerous idea which leads legislators to try to control the educational establishment. It would be very difficult to separate Postman from Robespierre.

But all the rhetoric at the government site - and indeed in many other sites - is founded upon a mistaken premise. Many of these arguments stem from a simple misreading of - or perhaps a failure to read - Thomas Jefferson's proposals for a public education system. Riley quotes the Texas state constitution: "A general diffusion of knowledge being essential to the preservation of the liberties and rights of the people, it shall be the duty of the Legislature of the State to establish and make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools." These words loosely echo Jefferson, but what did Jefferson actually propose for this diffusion of knowledge?

Jefferson proposed a system under which land for the buildings of the schools would be provided by the local government. The first three years of school would be provided gratis. The next level - grammar school - would be provided free only to those too poor to afford it themselves. Furthermore, not every student would be allowed to attend: only "some one of the best and most promising genius and disposition, [would] proceed to the grammar school of his district." They would then be required to appear before the Aldermen, who might or might not appoint them to go to grammar school. All those would then attend grammar school for one or two years, "save one only the best in genius and disposition, who shall be at liberty to continue there four years longer on the public foundation, and shall thence be deemed a senior." Thus, we see, Jefferson's plan was to be both means-tested and merit-based, hardly the contrivance which is now deposited before us and proclaimed "Jeffersonian".

On a more personal note, I would like to address the rather obvious conclusion that may be drawn from my introductory remarks. I am indeed a beneficiary of a private education, but my parents are not wealthy. My father, whose own father died when he was 4, dropped out of high school, joined the Navy in WWII, obtained his GED, and retired from the military in 1970. He went to a technical school and became a technician in the then-new field of computers, retiring from Control Data Corporation in 1988. My mother obtained an RN license, but for many years remained at home to raise us.

Fortunately, the Academy was the beneficiary of a generous land grant from the Simms family. From the proceeds of selling that land, the Academy provides need-based tuition aid to eligible students. Without that aid, neither I nor many other Academy graduates would have enjoyed such a rewarding educational experience.

During the entire time I attended the Academy, however, my parents had to pay taxes to send other people's children to public school. That is, they had to pay all of my tuition, and part of that of other families' children. Many of those other families certainly had higher incomes, and did not have the added burden of private school tuition, but they were able to pass the cost of educating their children onto my parents.

Was this fair? No.

Did this help "the rich"? Yes.

Did it involve vouchers? No.

As to my reservations about vouchers, there are at least two. First, there is the possibility that some parents might contrive to dupe the state of the voucher money for educational programs that are essentially kickback schemes. That is, they might split the voucher proceeds with unscrupulous school operators, while their children are warehoused. Wasting money, rent-seeking, and warehousing kids is an accurate description of the current public education system, though, so I don't foresee this as the major obstacle.

The other problem, as I foresee it, is that the state voucher program will be used to pressure private schools such as Albuquerque Academy into becoming less like what it is, and more like what public schools are. That is, instead of improving public schools, a voucher program would render private schools worse.

As I see it, vouchers should only be an intermediate step toward a truly free enterprise system. Education, unlike defense, is a private good, not a public good. In no other sphere have we seen a government - any government - do a better job of providing private goods than the private sector does. We hardly look to the Soviet Union as showing us how to raise, distribute, and market food - why should we look to them for an example of how to discover and distribute knowledge? The dangers I describe above cease to exist in a truly free market for education, as they have in the highly competitive Japanese private schools, for example.

Like it or not, the day is coming when the telecommunication and information processing revolutions are going to render obsolete the current paradigm for disseminating information. The value of human capital is quickly outstripping that of material capital, and we tend to invest in that which returns the highest yield. When that day arrives, when entrepreneurs like Michael Milken have shown that they can provide high-quality educational services to the masses without having to first purchase and equip a local campus, the pressure to leave public education systems will be enormous. We will have, at that time, two choices: one, to stop the hemorrhage by exerting the force that only government can, or to allow the system to crumble, as it should. Where do you think teachers unions and public school administrators will fall on that issue?

Where will you?

I can tell you where I fall: I will choose the freedom to choose.