Scott Kamps
Have you ever wondered why Chick-fil-A restaurants operate far more efficiently than every DMV office you’ve waited in?
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out: private businesses – where revenue directly correlates with customer satisfaction – outshine government agencies operating as monopolies. If Chick-fil-A’s service/food is bad, people go to Popeye’s; if DMV service is terrible, you’ll just wait longer.
Competition fosters efficiency, lower prices and improves quality in any market.
With Senate Republicans recently overriding Gov. Josh Stein’s veto of “Educational Choice for Children Act” (allowing North Carolina to participate in President Trump’s signature school choice program), the school choice debate raging in our nation is worth pondering.
Opportunity Scholarships in North Carolina provide up to $7,942 per student – based on household income – for parents to use at qualifying private schools in the 2026-27 school year. While that’s only about half of what the government-run public school in Graham County gets per student, the school choice program could help a great private school get started in our community.
Currently, not one dollar has been spent in Graham County through the school choice program in our state – because no private-school options exist here.
Could school choice be beneficial for our community? It’s difficult to see how having the funding for public education follow students – instead of institutions – wouldn’t benefit our small town.
Taxpayer funding for pre-K programs like Headstart and Pell Grants for higher education follow students to use at public or private schools of the student’s (or parent’s) choosing. Why not do the same thing for K-12?
Medicaid and food stamps follow people, not institutions.
Years ago, Milton Friedman expressed this thought experiment: “Food stamps are funds provided by the government. But if that were to be run like the schools, they would say everybody has to use these food stamps at a government grocery and each person with food stamps is assigned to a particular government grocer. So the only way you can get your food stamps is by going to that grocer. Do you think those groceries would be very good?”
Common arguments against school choice are that it defunds/destroys public schools and there’s no accountability for private schools. In response to defunding public schools, the money isn’t for institutions – it’s supposed to be for students!
If the public schools are meeting the needs of families, they have nothing to fear in regard to losing funding because families will keep their kids where they are. Competition for funding has actually improved public schools in areas where school choice is utilized.
Corey DeAngelis addresses the supposed lack of accountability: “School choice comes with the strongest form of accountability that exists: Families can vote with their feet to institutions that best meet their needs and take their money with them. Underperforming private schools shut down. Underperforming government schools get more money. Private schools are directly accountable to families.”
As much as I like spicy chicken sandwiches, I hope to see a good Christian school in our community before Chick-fil-A.
Scott Kamps writes a bi-weekly column for The Graham Star. He can be reached via email, thestableguy@frontier.com.