From Ideal to Institution: Reclaiming Public Education Through School Choice
The History of Public Education and a Proposal for Reform Part 3
The Economics of Liberty: Rebuilding Education One Room at a Time
In an era of bureaucratic bloat, ideological overreach, and declining academic standards, a bold return to fundamentals is not merely nostalgic—it is urgent. California currently spends at least between $17,000 and $20,000 per student annually in K–12 education. Some estimates of California spending peg the amount at $24,000 per student. Under Proposition 98, roughly 40–45% of the state budget is locked into education spending. Yet outcomes are mixed at best, and parents are increasingly alienated from the systems meant to serve their children. Meanwhile, public schools have shifted from teaching foundational academics to engaging in contested ideological projects, prompting both cultural and constitutional backlash.
What if we reimagined this funding not as a subsidy for the system, but as a direct investment in the child?
A Simple Model: The New One-Room Schoolhouse
Consider a parent-governed educational pod—a modern update to the traditional one-room schoolhouse. Thirty students, selected by their parents, are taught by a single teacher in a rented space, with funds directly allocated based on the per-pupil spending California already provides.
Annual budget per class:
30 students x $17,000 = $510,000
30 students x $20,000 = $600,000
Operating expenses (estimated):
Teacher salary (with benefits): $85,000
Assistant/paraprofessional: $35,000
Facility rental: $36,000 ($3,000/month)
Curriculum and materials: $15,000
Oversight/administration: $24,000
Insurance, technology, enrichment: $10,000
Total expenses: ~$205,000–225,000
Annual surplus: $285,000–$395,000
This surplus could be reinvested in:
Smaller class sizes
Arts, STEM, trades, or faith-based enrichment
Scholarships for low-income families
Investment in community educational infrastructure
Key Benefits
Teacher autonomy: Teachers are better paid and directly accountable to families, not bureaucracies.
Parental control: Parents select educators and curricula that reflect their values.
Local reinvestment: Funds stay in the community and serve actual educational outcomes.
Academic focus: Evaluation is based on classical metrics—math, literature, history, science, and reasoning—not subjective social ideologies.
Transparency: Budgets, performance, and pedagogy are all visible to stakeholders.
Facility Transformation and the Gradual Shift from Centralization
As educational pods become more prevalent, public school enrollment is likely to decline naturally. This gradual transition will open up opportunities to repurpose existing school buildings. Classrooms once used by district teachers could be rented to parent-run learning pods, enabling communities to reclaim public spaces for public benefit, without the burden of centralized, top-down control.
Rather than a single school district operating under a bureaucratic, state-directed system, the school campus could evolve into a shared educational ecosystem:
Each classroom is a unique pod controlled by its own group of parents and educators
Shared access to larger campus resources—playgrounds, auditoriums, science labs, and gyms—for activities like sports, assemblies, performances, and fairs
A dynamic, community-oriented campus that promotes innovation, accountability, and shared values
Over time, beginning with the first parent-run pod to rent space, additional pods would gradually displace the district-controlled system, one classroom at a time. With each new pod, the balance of power shifts from distant bureaucracies back to local families, where education becomes a collaborative, purpose-driven enterprise once again.
Higher Education: Breaking the Credential Cartel
The one-room model can also scale into higher education. Today, public colleges and universities in California spend $25,000–$35,000 per student, subsidized through a web of tuition inflation, administrative expansion, and federally-backed student loans and taxpayer funds.
This system graduates debt-laden individuals who delay homeownership, family formation, and entrepreneurship.
One innovative response to this broken model is Peterson Academy, recently launched by psychologist and author Jordan B. Peterson. This platform offers high-quality, low-cost online education by connecting students with top-tier intellectuals and practitioners across disciplines, without the inflated price tag or ideological filtering of traditional universities. By leveraging technology and voluntary association, Peterson Academy exemplifies how decentralized, mission-driven institutions can reintroduce academic rigor, moral seriousness, and economic efficiency into higher education.
A restructured model would:
Provide portable public scholarships for alternative, modular education
Support apprenticeships, specialized academies, or private mentorship models
Restore the purpose of higher learning to the acquisition of wisdom, mastery, and civic virtue
A Scalable, Sovereign Future
This is not about returning to the past. It is about recovering what once worked well: small-scale, high-agency, accountable education.
The one-room schoolhouse of the 21st century is lean, responsive, and free to all. It invites parents, teachers, and students back into partnership, and restores dignity to all three.
With funding already in place and demand surging for choice, this model is not only viable, it is essential. In a future article, we will explore the system’s opposition to this innovation.
The economics of liberty begin with reclaiming the classroom.