EDUCATION
MICHAEL MORRIS: Nub of the problem is not letting people make own decisions
One of the most damaging assumptions common to — though never admitted by — much of the intelligentsia is that poor people are incapable of making decisions for themselves. This is no better illustrated than by the instinctive approval of the idea that the state is for the poor, the private sector for the rich, and the matching enthusiasm for retaining this inhibiting limit on the opportunities available to those who have less money. It may be well meaning — charitable, perhaps, rather than miserly — but that doesn’t make it any less misguided for being not only paternalistic but depriving, almost to the extent of preserving a status quo in which the poor are expected to know their place. And why should they? The penalties of being compelled to depend on a too-often-misnamed public service are most keenly felt by the poor in the one domain in which they have every reason to pin their hopes of escaping poverty: education. When it works, a successful 12-year school experience produces...
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