No ‘Invisible Hand’

* Proponents of Prop. 38 trust in the market forces to take care of things in education--the “invisible hand” of Adam Smith. The problem is that the market forces seem to never work in education. The absence of the invisible hand has never been more visible.

A simple rule of supply and demand suggests that when a product or service that is in short supply has a huge demand, the price of such product must go up. We have run into the biggest shortage of qualified teachers in recent history, and the need to place them in the classroom has never been greater. Yet our salaries in many cases are declining when inflation is factored in. So, where are the market forces now?

The invisible hand works in a framework of greed and selfishness. Public education is the greatest equalizer in our great democracy. Prop. 38 guarantees the erosion of public-education funding.

ALFREDO JUAREZ, Teacher

Clifford Street Elementary

Los Angeles