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political influence of the public school lobby, explains why government
policy is undermining the education of our children by censoring the
communication of information between public schools and their
“customers.”

Parents pay for their children’s public school education through
taxes rather than by direct payment to the school of their choice. As a
result, they do not receive information from the public schools on the

costs of educating their children in the form of a price, or tuition
payment. Their taxes pay for a host of public services (and disservices),
with no breakdown informing them how much they are paying for each.
And even if parents did know how much they are paying for the public

schools educating their children, they still would not know the social
costs, since taxpayers with no children in the public schools are paying
much of those costs. Furthermore, parents are limited in their ability to

respond to information on the cost of public schools, since in most cases
they either have to send their children to the school assigned to them by
the public school authorities, or pay for their children to attend a private

school while still paying for the public education their children are no
longer receiving. So governments prevent parents from communicating
their dissatisfaction with their assigned public school by refusing to pay

the price charged and taking their business elsewhere.
Thus, parents receive little information on how much public
schools cost and have little motivation to acquire information on how
well their children’s public schools are performing relative to other

schools, since they cannot easily act on that information. And public
schools receive little information from parents on how well they are
doing, and even less motivation to respond appropriately to the

information (typically in the form of complaints) they do receive. By
making it extremely costly for parents to pay for education directly or to
send their children to the public school of their choice, policymakers
prevent, and effectively censor, the communication between parents and

public schools of much of the information necessary to provide good
education. Not surprisingly, decisions on such important things as class
size, curriculum, teaching methods, and the connection between teacher

pay and performance will be influenced more by the latest education
fashion, what is currently politically correct, onesize-fits-all mandates
imposed by remote authorities, and the convenience of teachers and

administrators, than by information on the value received and the cost of
providing education.