I've read some Jeffrey Yass profiles, but it will be hard to beat the one just published by Robert Huber at Philadelphia's City Paper. It's not just an illuminating profile of Yass, but of the motivation behind many of the privatizers.
Re "Yass is a free market true believer. Competition will improve education. Education will reduce poverty."
Yeah, these are the same people who say that competition is for suckers. Their business goal is always market domination, aka monopoly, aka a total lack of competition.
Competition will not, I repeat NOT, improve education. Competition creates winners and losers, and the first Law of the Tribe is "we compete with others, but inside the tribe/family we cooperate." We don't care if others "lose" but we do care if our tribe/family members lose.
The market terminology is such a smoke screen because even econ 1 land will yeah about imperfect markets leading to a lack of true competition and therefore theorized better results. School systems even under a conventional economic framework lack the ability for caretakers to meaningfully 1)have quality options 2) have quality information 3) have the knowledge to interpret that information and 4) have access and equity to those options unless it is entirely public. It's not like a burger joint where you can look up the menu items and not go if the food was bad to another spot. It is meaningful when Schools close, when kids get a worse "product", when kid's familes are priced out ect. EdChoice and the like are so frustrating for this reason because it's cherry-picking economic ideas and then not even applying them faithfully
Re "Yass is a free market true believer. Competition will improve education. Education will reduce poverty."
Yeah, these are the same people who say that competition is for suckers. Their business goal is always market domination, aka monopoly, aka a total lack of competition.
Competition will not, I repeat NOT, improve education. Competition creates winners and losers, and the first Law of the Tribe is "we compete with others, but inside the tribe/family we cooperate." We don't care if others "lose" but we do care if our tribe/family members lose.
I would follow the link to the full article, but it's too painful.
The more interesting question to me is where did Yass go to school? Public schools or private schools?
He went to public school in Queens, NY, then became a professional gambler before starting to trade on the Philadelphia stock exchange.
Great breakdown of the people behind the policies
The market terminology is such a smoke screen because even econ 1 land will yeah about imperfect markets leading to a lack of true competition and therefore theorized better results. School systems even under a conventional economic framework lack the ability for caretakers to meaningfully 1)have quality options 2) have quality information 3) have the knowledge to interpret that information and 4) have access and equity to those options unless it is entirely public. It's not like a burger joint where you can look up the menu items and not go if the food was bad to another spot. It is meaningful when Schools close, when kids get a worse "product", when kid's familes are priced out ect. EdChoice and the like are so frustrating for this reason because it's cherry-picking economic ideas and then not even applying them faithfully
Tldr I appreciate your work!