Competition myth in education

Something has always "stuck in my craw" about the arguments that education would be improved by the introduction of competition. (In the "free-market" of the United States- another myth-- we are supposed to accept as obvious that competition will improve quality and decrease price.)

For educators, however, the difficulties have been several and the economies of scale that apply to many manufacturing processes do not apply to education-- in fact scaling appears to change fundamentally the process of education, that's why having a class of 50 students results in less education than s possible in classes of 15.

Seth Rosenblatt, writing on eSchoolNews web site, has an essay that presents the ideas in a cogent and detailed manner... it is well worth a read.