Question

What is the economic explanation for why K-12 education is primarily provided by the government?

Answer 1

Under the Constitution the responsibility for K-12 education rests with the states. There is also a strong national interest in the quality of public schools throughout the country. Furthermore, through the statutory process, the federal government is providing aid to the states and schools in an attempt to complement, not supplant, state funding. In 1965, with the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), the primary source of federal K-12 assistance began.

A fundamental consequence of all government initiatives is to redistribute taxpayers' revenue to plan recipients and the infrastructure that funds them. The tens of billions of dollars spent a year on K-12 federal services would otherwise have been kept by families and used for college or other private purposes. The higher their taxes, the less income families have to spend on private schools, saving for college, or other educational expenses.

Therefore, without federal intervention, state and local governments-which are far closer to the people the schools are meant to represent-might determine what they think was the best use of dollars in public education, whether to decrease class sizes, pay teachers more, or give parents more power by making choices.

States can delegate to the local governments as much or as little authority as they want. Most states grant local school boards a degree of influence over the local education. (It is important to remember that school boards are usually independent of local governments.) School boards will also agree on matters such as the curricula for their districts and other educational information, such as how to divide grades (which grades to have together in kindergarten) and how to plan all regular classes and the whole kindergarten year.

Through the use of grants and through such laws as No Child Left Behind, the federal government took a role for itself in education. The federal government has no official control over education, but it does offer the state and local governments vast sums of grant money. It will enforce guidelines that must be followed if the grant money is to be earned. This is how the federal government plays a part in an environment that should be a matter for the state.