Public schools contribute much to our greatness

To the editor:

University professors are advocating school vouchers as an elixir for our nation's public schools, such as Washington University economics professor Russell Roberts on your July 14 Opinion page. According to Roberts, vouchers will unleash the forces of capitalism and cure America's public schoolitis.

Our public schools are not sick. Roberts and other critics harp on student test scores. They compare our scores to other countries' scores and declare American public schools a disgrace. One might as well compare apples and orangutans. Or they compare today's scores with those from decades past, which is another futile exercise.

The best indicator of our schools' achievements is the fact that average Americans enjoy the highest standard of living in history. America's economy is the strongest force on the planet. The American military is the finest in the world. American culture is becoming dominant around the globe. There are many reasons for America's greatness, but our public schools are one of them.

Roberts' lampooning of the threefold increase in public-school spending is too simplistic. To truly measure our country's commitment to public education, one must calculate education funding as a percentage of our gross domestic product and compare that to the percentages for previous decades. I suspect those percentages are unchanged at best.

Roberts laments the increase in administrators. Administrators spend a great deal of time doing paper work, because government money invariably brings government over-regulation. Roberts and others who foresee vouchers as a panacea should remember that bit of real-world education.

RAYMOND J. PEATS

Jackson, Mo.