In Louisiana, as in most states, education is of prime concern to citizens. Recent news on education in Louisiana and the nation has been both disappointing and disconcerting.

Parents of school-age children are less satisfied with the quality of public education than they were 10 years ago. This conclusion comes not from some slick pollster with carefully worded questions, but from the actions of parents and their children.

Recently, the Louisiana Department of Education came out with some disturbing statistics. The proportion of school-age children enrolled in public schools has shrunk over the past 10 years. The proportion of school-age children in private schools, in home-school programs and in the labor force after having dropped out have all increased over the same 10 years.

The choice among public school, private school, home school and no school is a free one. People make free choices among these alternatives by looking at the value of each alternative. Value of the alternative is simply the benefits perceived from the alternative minus the costs of the alternative. If public schools, especially when provided free to the consumer, have a shrinking market share, there is either a problem with the quality of the things that parents value or there is an enormous perception problem.

I can understand that over this period some loss of market share to private and home schools as incomes have finally begun to rebound. What is harder to understand is the loss of market share to no schooling, to dropouts. Maybe it is the misperception that a GED is as good as a high school diploma. All the evidence on the effects of education on earnings suggests that those with GEDs, on average, have no earning advantage over those without GEDs (and without high school diplomas).

On the other hand, it may just mean that parents and their children see that immediate gratification of market jobs far better than they see the longer term advantage of sticking with school. Some may just not be seeing the kind of education they want available from the public school system. It could be that the school system is not listening to parents (or potential employers) closely enough.

At any rate, loss of market share to private schools, home schools and no schools is cause for pause.

Clinton's proposal of 100,000 additional teachers

The disconcerting news is the President's proposal of 100,000 additional teachers in the nation's classrooms. As a teacher, I understand the problem of overcrowded classrooms. What I don't understand is why the number of teachers at a school is a federal matter.

The number of teachers and classroom size is something that is voted on at the local level.. Are we to believe that all of those who have failed to approve more taxes at the local level to pay for more teachers are now presumed to want more teachers? Do our values, the trade-offs that we see between taxes and teachers, change because the tax dollars are federal?

Well, it is not our values that change, but our perceptions of who is paying the bill. Somehow, many see federal tax dollars as paid for by those out of state. But just as out-of-state money comes into the state to pay for additional teachers in Louisiana, Louisiana taxpayers will be paying for teachers in other states.

I'm not saying that paying for additional teachers is not a better spending choice for aour federal tax dollars, I'm just saying that it is not a better choice than a federal tax cut and letting citizens vote for more teachers at the local level.