Just Admit it: President Obama's Policy Imitates Free Markets

President Barack Obama has been quite vocal of late in support for a system of merit pay for teachers. The obvious operative principle here is one of incentive- a monetary bonus encourages teachers to excel, resulting in a higher quality of education across the board.

Funny, but this is exactly how free markets would construct an educational system. Schools would compete for elite teachers, offering higher salaries for the most competent, and lower pay for those less capable.

The President's potential policy attempts to emulate this almost precisely, as teachers would similarly be motivated to maximize their performance through the promise of monetary gain.

So what's different about Obama's policy as opposed to the free market system? The fundamental difference lies within the firms that would, in a pure environment, be bidding for the instructors' labor. A system of public education unjustly forces uninvolved parties to finance the service of teachers at certain school, and vice versa.

Secondly, although the incentive concept is successfully replicated through the merit pay proposal, an additional burden is levied upon taxpayers through the publicized system. Where private schools nation wide would be of cost to the families of participants, the funding of public school employees is of cost to every taxpayer, and since the federal government has already decided to undertake an unprecedented, unjustified spending spree, the money will be borrowed from abroad.

Not only can we see that the "merit pay" is collected unfairly from sources which may not recieve the benefits of the funding (as they would according to free market principles), but we also see that holistically the country is disadvantaged as the funds will eventually have to be paid back with interest- ultimately costing taxpayers even more, unequally expropriated cash.

Imitation may be the most sincere form of flattery, but if President Obama could swallow his pride and implement a true market-based educational system instead of attempting to benefit from its emulation, all parties would clearly benefit.