"Even" Corporations Value Education

In a recent column at Inc. is a proof by counterexample that several rationalizations for public education are wrong:

Photo by Nicola Tolin on Unsplash.

When I worked there, the chairman (Robert Wegman, who died in 2006) funded several private Catholic elementary schools in Rochester, New York, where the company is headquartered. I had the privilege of meeting with him, one on one, to report on the success of these schools. I asked why he did this, and he said that he saw failing public schools that weren't capable of producing the kind of people he needed to make his stores successful, so he decided to do something, and that was funding the private schools. There was no requirement that the scholarship students one day work for Wegmans, but I'm sure many of them did. [bold added]

Just off the top of my head, this blasts to flinders the following excuses for government schools: (1) businessmen are too "blinded" by the almighty dollar to spend money on improving their communities, (2) education is "too important" to leave to private parties, and (3) if the government didn't guarantee this vital resource (as if government schools provide a decent education), nobody would because they are "too selfish". Feel free to add any others you can think of in the comments.

Most people -- the secularized Christians of the left especially included -- are oblivious to the dangers of religion, so I'll give the late Robert Wegman a pass for supporting parochial schools rather than, say, secular Montessori schools. In addition, there could be other good reasons for his choice, including no other viable alternatives at the time. The point is, the short paragraph above should give pause to anyone who values education and imagines that we need or even want the government to be involved. We see the results of the latter all the time, and have a solid reason here to consider the free market alternative.

-- CAV