Accountability and school choice

I keep hearing about how school choice puts taxpayer dollars into schools that lack accountability. In some ways, this makes sense. The government can directly oversee their own schools in ways that they can't for other schools.

The real issue here isn't that private schools lack accountability. Instead, they have a different type of accountability. If families can choose the schools for their children, they are free to leave. If they leave, they take their funding with them. This leads to accountability to families that doesn't exist in the government-run model.

If government-run schools fail to meet the needs of children, what happens? In most cases, absolutely nothing. If a family has money, they might leave. Without choice, this has no impact on their revenue. With fewer students, failing students can increase their spending per student.

Actually, it's worse than that. Increasing funding is a popular solution for failures of government-run schools. This means that government-run schools are rewarded with increased funds if they do a horrible job. By contrast, private schools shut down.

The truth is that private schools and government-run schools are accountable. The difference is that they are accountable to different groups. Private schools are directly accountable to families. Government-run schools are accountable to bureaucrats. There's also a difference in the implications of failure. Private schools cease operations. Government-run schools are rewarded with more funding.