Sign Up For Our Newsletter

Four years ago I moved my family to Angel Fire, New Mexico, to create a charter high school.  Two teachers with whom I had previously worked ten years earlier in Alaska moved to New Mexico to work at the school I was creating.  By the second year of the school, we had the created the highest ranked public high school in New Mexico based on Jay Mathews’ Challenge Index.  The third year, we ranked among the “Top 100 Best Public High Schools” on Newsweek’s list.

But at that point, I had been forced out by the state of New Mexico because I was not a licensed administrator.  When I had moved to New Mexico charter school administrators did not need a license.  But the law had changed, and I would have needed seven years’ experience as a licensed public school teacher in order to enter an administrative licensure program.  Despite the fact that my work as an educator has been praised by leading educational theorists and practitioners, and despite the fact that I have achieved spectacular results, it is not legal for me to lead a charter school in New Mexico.  Moreover, beyond spectacular academic results, my focus as an educator is always first and foremost on developing adolescent happiness and well-being.  It is inexcusable that it is not legal for me to lead schools.  We need to legalize markets in happiness and well-being.

There is a distinction between “decriminalized” markets in, say, prostitution and drugs, as compared to full legalization. In Holland, for instance, while it is legal to sell small quantities of cannabis products, it is not legal for these retailers to buy wholesale quantities nor to advertise. A commercial market in cannabis remains illegal; the cannabis industry does not benefit from the investment capital, economies of scale, professional agricultural and manufacturing, public relations and marketing, etc. that are characteristic of alcohol, tobacco, computer, or toilet paper industries.

Similarly, while we are free to teach or heal or advise friends on many issues pertaining to happiness and well-being, and sell many products and services which are likely to increase the happiness and well-being of others, there are severe restrictions on the type and scale of well-being products and services that are sold. Thus one might say that while interactions pertaining to happiness and well-being are largely decriminalized, full blown markets in such services are not yet legal.

Private education is highly regulated in many states; in Pennsylvania private academic schools must be staffed with certified teachers, in Maryland a private school must operate on at least an acre of land, etc.   A friend of mine who opened a private school committed to humane education in PA had to hire certified personnel rather than her first choice of staff, another humane educator in Maryland who tutors homeschoolers in art and music and consults on curriculum in core academic subjects is very careful not to “teach” core academics lest he be shut down for operating a school illegally.

In Oregon, there are bounty hunters for turning in students who don’t attend school though they might be doing something better for them.  In New Jersey, there are bounty hunters who try to catch students who sneak across district lines in order to get a better education.

In principle, it is legal for me in Florida, Texas, and California to open up a private school and offer almost any kind of educational program. That said, I have had public school officials actively discourage parents from sending their kids to the excellent Montessori schools with which I’ve worked on the grounds that “they may have a hard time adapting to the public school when they return because they will probably miss some curriculum.”  I am well educated enough to not to be intimidated by this, but there are many good-hearted parents listening to the authority of such government officials who, in their eyes, speaks with authority regarding their child’s well-being.  Who wants to risk their child’s future prospects on an education that the authorities tell you will damage the child in the official system (immigrant parents, often coming from a country that does have an official curriculum, are especially susceptible to this bullying)?  When I ran a school that taught middle school students to pass Advanced Placement science tests, parents would sometimes say in fear “But won’t my son miss 7th grade science?,” having been well-trained to believe that the “official” curriculum has some official status.  Is intimidation by public officials equivalent to illegality?  Well, no, but . . .

Meanwhile, collectively we are forced to pay about half a trillion dollars each year for government-managed institutions which are actively damaging to the intellects and spiritual vitality of about two-thirds of our children (generously I’ll assume that one-third are okay in these institutions; characteristically that one-third who do well in such institutions includes those upper-middle class parents who support public schools).  In addition to this amount, people who aspire to be educators face very strong incentives to obtain a “teaching license” in order to get a job teaching; even if they teach at a private school in Texas they might move to a state like Pennsylvania at some point where they will need a credential even in private schools.  Support for these education departments and student loans and grants to support aspiring educators who are forced to take these programs which do very little towards increasing authentic well-being probably costs us another $100 billion or so while taking four years of life from people who could be learning something valuable or contributing to society.

An idealistic educator who wishes to work outside the system, in private Montessori or Waldorf schools, must get a different credential, usually not offered at universities, for which they are not eligible for student loans and grants. Thus our young idealist pays $5000-10,000 out of her own pocket and foregoes a year’s income before embarking on a career at mostly small, poorly funded schools where they will earn lower salary and benefits, work longer hours, have less job security, and have fewer opportunities for relocation or promotion. The foregone earnings over a forty year teaching career could be on the order of a million dollars, while paying taxes out of her inadequate salary to support a system that she believes is less effective in nourishing the well-being of children.

Thus someone who cares first and foremost about the well-being of children and decides to commit her life to doing what is right for children may well have a successful career; the option she has chosen has not been criminalized; but cumulatively numerous obstacles are preventing such people and their love for children from flourishing.

But with a separation of school and state, educational tax credits, or minimally regulated education vouchers, we would no longer be forced to support a system of control and intimidation that damages children while forcing many of our most caring educators to live in the margins of our society.  Large educational enterprises would be launched which could devote these enormous sums directly towards human beings and activities that would be focused keenly on that which is in the best interest of children.

While the “winners” in an educational market would not immediately be purveyors of well-being, over time educational consumers would become more discerning, just as a refinement exists in all markets.  Skateboards today are vastly more sophisticated than were the early skateboards of the 1970s, sneakers are more sophisticated, toothbrushes have become ever-more elegant and nuanced. People need to learn to understand the dynamism of market processes and not look at the schools, public or private, that we see at present.

Opportunities for gambling and pornography have proliferated and are flush with capital because there are active, dynamic markets in these activities.  It is, at present, easier to create a dynamic, innovative enterprise offering gambling or pornography than it is to devote oneself to humane education. The legal environment has very substantially contributed to this circumstance.

I believe that people passionately want to do what is good, they want to provide services to others that represent quality, they want to seek out that which is best for themselves and for their children.  If we who want to supply that which is better and healthier are constantly crippled and harassed, then it might appear, as it does to some, that people don’t desire that which is good.  And my reply is: Well, before coming to that conclusion, let’s look at the asymmetry of power between the kind of education that is supported by law vs. the kind of education that is marginalized by law.  Perhaps if we legalized markets in happiness and well-being, we entrepreneurs of happiness and well-being could compete successfully.

Michael Strong is the CEO of Flow, Inc., the founder of several innovative high-performance schools, and the author of The Habit of Thought: From Socratic Seminars to Socratic Practice.