CURMUDGUCATION: The Free Market vs. Customers

CURMUDGUCATION: The Free Market vs. Customers:
The Free Market vs. Customers
I write so much about the free(ish) market that one might assume that I hate it. I don't. I think the profit motive, properly harnessed and directed, can accomplish a great deal. Making money is not inherently bad.

However, there are certain things that the free market will not do, and those weaknesses are in direct conflict with the purposes and goals of public education.

If you want to see what the problems would be, all you have to do is look around right now at every other sector of Trumpistan, where the Privatizer-in-Chief and the members of his Free Market Fan Club have been pursuing a particular set of goals.

This week the FCC took some steps to "relieve thousands of smaller broadband providers from onerous reporting obligations." More specifically, they removed some regulations that require ISPs to publish pricing and service information. This is seen by some as a first step of a general assault on net neutrality.

Meanwhile, some environmental regulations are already rolling back, a trend that is expected to accelerate under the new EPA head. Elizabeth Warren's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is under attack. And in the education world, for-profit colleges that were feeling some pressure under Obama (though, seriously, how much pressure really) are feeling like there's a fresh new day a-borning.

These and the many government actions like them come from the same basic free-market CURMUDGUCATION: The Free Market vs. Customers: