Matthew Yglesias really doesn't understand how the world let alone education works. In two posts of remarkable incoherence, Yglesias seeks to show that if you favor choice in one thing you must favor choice in all things and, whatismore, if you favor unions you have to favor crap beer because some major league makers of crap beer are unionized therefore unionization causes crap beer. Consequently, if you like non-unionized micro beer, you must support charter schools. Others have pointed out the silliness of the argument.
Leaving aside the issue of how Carter's deregulation of beer making for private consumption led to increases in craft brewing for sale, I think it's worth pointing out that the only way this works is if charter school improve educational outcomes, they don't. Here, of course, his mindless commitment to failed ideological project blinds him to the fact that effective reform is driven by what works and what doesn't in the world as it is actually constituted rather than what ought to work if the world as it actually is conformed to a discredited ideological cosngtruct.
Maybe I am missing the argument because I am not much of a beer drinker, bit it seems like Yglesias is arguing that because the market works in one instance it must work in all instances. the interesting thing is that one purpose of government is to provide services that the free market cannot provide efficientely. Education and medical care may be two of those things, it is surprising that Yglesias seems to miss this
ReplyDeleteIt'd be surprising if he didn't make that error every single time he discusses education reform. His cluelessness on this particular point is a feature not a bug.
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