A really bad piece from John Krull in today's C-J...


Krull heads up the school of journalism at Franklin College. And one hopes that this, somehow, does not reflect on his ideas of how to do good journalism.


Indiana has a bad case of school voucher fever right now.


Oooh, a clever opening. Later, he throws in a reference to "delirium".


Many sensible people have embraced the idea of vouchers as a cure-all for what ails education...


Cure-all? Hello, Mr. Strawman. 

Those folks managed to ram the most sweeping voucher law in the country through the Indiana General Assembly last year.

Ram...

Advocates for vouchers speak of “education reform” — their chosen euphemism...

Yo, John, the education establishment has used the same term in obviously worthless ways for a long time. But I understand, from what follows, that you don't like competition much (at least in some arenas).


Voucher advocates say that giving parents choices about where to send their children to school will improve education by introducing market forces — mostly, competition — into the process...things will get easier for individuals if they are allowed to fend in the marketplace for themselves without government intervention. That would have been a fascinating notion for the people who lived a century ago.

John, the economist, goes on to compare competition in 21st century America in education to "what the slaughterhouse did to cattle" and the economy of the 19th century.

That is why people turned to government to shelter them from the worst excesses of market forces...

So, if people ask for the govt's monopoly power to be reduced, why is that a big deal to John?


To his credit, he recommends vouchers to be tried as an experiment-- because he is convinced they will be a failure!


I look forward to John's next essay when he recommends that poor people be given government-produced food from the govt-run grocery store closest to their home.