Republicans and Evangelicals I Milton Friedman and School Choice (part 2 of 2)

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Milton Friedman is one of the most important economists of the last hundred years. His ideas were quoted by many evangelical writers in the 1970s and 80s, despite his not being a Christian and few of his ideas being in the Bible. Figures like Jerry Falwell loved the guy. Ronald Reagan adopted many of his ideas, though they disagreed on things like the increasing national debt. Friedman played a major role in the popularization of the school voucher concept. Essentially, some people want to allow parents to have a say in which school their children attend. If they want to take the children to a private school, they believe that the government should give them a certain amount of money that would have gone to the public school and give it to the private one. Those who disagree say that this would defund already underfunded schools. Friedman also believed that teachers should not necessarily be certified and that the free market would weed out the bad ones.

Stanford professor Jennifer Burns (author of Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative) returns to help Chris explore this complicated subject.

Sources:

• Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative by Jennifer Burns
• Reaganland by Rick Perlstein
• Free to Choose
• A helpful Britannica article on Friedman
• Listen, America! by Jerry Falwell. Paperback, August 1980 reprint version Bantam edition
• Divided We Stand by Marjorie Spruill
• Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman

Discussion Questions:

• Had you heard of Friedman before this episode?
• What are school vouchers?
• How could school vouchers be seen by some as a tool of segregation?
• What would it mean if parents had to keep track of every teacher their children learned under?
• How are schools currently funded in the US? Why does that matter? How are some schools wealthy while others are poor?
• What should be the role of wealthy people when it comes to education?

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