Monopolies Never Work

Andrew Coulson of the Cato Institute points out that the lack of competition characterizing public school systems necessarily means that excellence is not encouraged:

My point is not that pockets of quality and thrift are impossible within a monopoly system, but that those pockets generally remain isolated and transitory. Monopolies lack a mechanism by which excellence is automatically and routinely encouraged, identified, disseminated and perpetuated. That mechanism is what markets provide, and is why, as I wrote in the WaPo piece, iPods have gone from 5 to 80 gigabytes, and televisions from 4″ black and white tubes to 4′ color panels.

He goes on to say that good teachers in traditional systems may get a plaque while in the private sector good work is rewarded with increased income, in one case in the millions of dollars.