I agree with the Friedmans that we need to empower families and give them choices but a voucher doesn't seem to offer much real choice to families to me. All a family can do is choose another school. Even the universal voucher used in Sweden seems to confine what is called choice to an exceedingly narrow band:
While schools must adhere to the Swedish national curriculum and testing, they are free to design their own programs and implement any teaching style they see fit.That's not much of a choice. How about families choosing what they want at the schools they already support? How about the schools providing services for families rather than families being drafted and ordered to serve?
But all that aside, in this interview, David Friedman talks insightfully about: the status of children, "adults who deal routinely with children .... are likely to be intellectually sloppy because of the superior status they have" and discussion of the corrupting influence of having power over kids, gaming; how gameboy time is more productive than being in school, learning what you are interested in, how his unschooled son learned math for college and much more.
Oh and if you wonder about Friedman's proof that two cars hitting each other at 50 mph are not the same as one car hitting a wall at 100 mph, surf over to the utube home of the video and the discussion there has some commenters exploring that a bit.
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