We are seeing swarms of South Korean Kias and Hyundais on the road lately but never a primitive North Korean Pyonghwa. No need to wonder why South Korea sells four million cars a year while North Korea produces only 40,000. It reminds me of the old differences between West German Mercedes and BMW and the famously low-quality East German Trabants.
The canny Germans solved their Trabant quality problem not with government cash but simply by tearing down the East German wall against competition. Competition and creative destruction cleared the playing field of bad cars almost overnight. Today, Trabants are prized only by collectors for their laughable, collective junkiness.
That leaves us wondering why so many American voters, of all people, keep pouring money in the form of taxes and school referendums into an education monopoly when the solution to quality education is so obvious and simple. Educating children is a lot more complex and important than manufacturing cars, and certainly too important to be left to a monopoly.
Even politicians who love public union monopoly money have joined voters in almost a dozen states to tear down that union wall protecting government schools from public competition. Simply by adopting universal school choice, they have brought the power of the entire free market to bear on education where it belongs. Wisconsin voters should follow suit. Why should our kids have to settle for a Trabant, or a Pyonghwa, education when they could have a BMW?
Art DeJong
Sheboygan
