Courses

Kevin Currie-Knight

Professor

East Carolina University

Dr. Currie-Knight is a Teaching Assistant Professor in East Carolina University’s College of Education, where he teaches classes about the psychological and social foundations of education. His research is interdisciplinary, ranging from the philosophy and history to the political economy of education.
His dissertation, From Laissez-Faire to Vouchers, is an intellectual history of the changing arguments free market libertarians have made over time regarding privatization of education. His scholarship has appeared in such journals as The Independent Review, Studies in Philosophy of Education, and shorter articles have appeared in The Freeman.

Blog Posts

Why we need to deemphasize schooling in America

November 2, 2023
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Education

Homeschooling in the United States has seen a remarkable surge since COVID. Since 2018, homeschooling has increased by more than 50 percent — even surpassing 100 percent in some states — but the question remains: Why is traditional schooling still so deeply ingrained in our culture? School has nothing to do with freedom. First, there are state laws mandating that you have either attended school or have learned the very specific kinds of things you’d learn in school. That form of education is not a choice: it is legally compulsory. But schooling is culturally compulsory as well. That’s

Diversity: The best argument for school choice

January 28, 2017
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Education

Think about how many different kinds of students there are in your local public school. Reading is a challenge for some and a breeze for others. Some students do well in a “traditional” classroom, and others would do better in “alternative” environments. We could go on and on. This is the single best argument for school choice: it accommodates diversity, allowing individual schools to offer different products and allowing families to find the one that best serves their needs. Usually, the focal question in the school choice debate is: does it work? To find out, researchers pore over performance

3 reasons why school-choice profits are a good thing

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Education

If you look at almost any negative article about school choice, it will probably use the word “profit” in a sneering tone. The suggestion is usually that private and charter schools care about profit over education. That seems to be the reason school-choice critic (and former US Assistant Secretary of Education) Diane Ravitch sure doesn’t like the idea of for-profit schools. And according to education advocate Steven Singer, “Public schools are designed to educate. Corporate schools are designed to profit.”[1] Public schools are not for-profit enterprises. They receive federal, state,

5 types of school choice: Which has the least government involvement?

January 24, 2017
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Education

School choice is all about giving consumers variety. But lo and behold, there are actually varieties of school choice. In some types of school choice (like open enrollment programs and charter schools) the government plays a big role. And in others (like voucher programs and education savings accounts) not so much. Here are the 5 common types of school choice, in order from most to least government involvement, with a description of how each works. #1 First, there are open enrollment programs, sometimes known as “public school choice.” This means that families can choose from many different

Why education isn’t a public good — and why government doesn’t have to provide it

January 18, 2017
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Education

One argument often used to defend public schools and discourage school choice is that education is a “public good,” not a private one. Despite several attempts to dispel the idea that K-12 education meets the economic criteria for a public good, this trope is still kicking around. But what do people even mean when they say education is a public good? In a 2014 article titled “Education is a Public Good, Not a Private Commodity,” Australian writer Stewart Riddle argues that education creates public, and not purely private, benefits. He doesn’t deny that education produces private benefits

Why schools should be businesses (sort of)

January 10, 2017
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Education

In an article called “Why Schools Aren’t Businesses,” a teacher is depicted challenging an ice cream company president on why schools can’t operate like ice cream companies. Ice cream companies, says the teacher, can send back ingredients that don’t meet their standards and can insist on only using the best ingredients they can afford. But schools, she says, do not have that luxury; they take the students they get. “We take them big, small, rich, poor, gifted, exceptional, abused, frightened, confident, homeless, rude, and brilliant... We take them all! Every one! And that, Mr. Vollmer,