A couple of local criminals pleaded guilty to murder recently. While that's hardly earthshaking news, a disturbing detail caught my attention:

David and Carlos Carmichael are mentally retarded and illiterate despite graduating from Philadelphia high schools, their attorneys contend. Both have strong employment histories in food service.

Yet they survive, because our society has created a phony marketplace giving them an unfair advantage -- backed by government force:

Many libertarians attempt to point to the very existence of the public school system as a hindrance to quality education. But that explanation doesn't suffice. Active private markets can usually exist alongside government provision, even when the government service is free.

For example, the existence of the post office doesn't mean we are hamstrung in sending packages from place to place. If we don't like post office service, we can choose another carrier. Because there are so few restrictions, there is no shortage of companies willing to deliver packages for a fee. In the educational market, there are surprisingly few options for private, affordable, consumer-responsive educational services.

The reason is legal restriction. Thanks to federal pressure, all states presume to define what does and does not constitute a "school" and an "education." They do this through compulsory education laws, the very existence of which implies a state supervisory role as well as the use of coercion. To the extent that market-based schools step outside the approved boundaries, they set themselves up for legal entanglements and harassment.

For example, in no state in this country may a mother decide, without government permission, to set up a for-profit school in her home and have neighborhood parents pay her for educational services of their own choosing to the exclusion of other forms of schooling. Both the service provider and the willing parents would risk visits by social workers and school officials, and then, possibly, incarceration. That's true even in the freest states.

In a free market, this would be the mainstream means of purchasing educational services, especially at the elementary level. Classrooms would be small and largely neighborhood based. Fees would be low. Stay-home moms would have a great entrepreneurial opportunity to bring in some extra income. The reason such an environment does not exist is because compulsory schooling laws prevent it from developing in the first place.

What can be done to foster a market in schools? Compulsory education laws must be repealed. Only this radical step would introduce genuine market forces into the education industry. This would be a great victory for parents and children. But for the educational bureaucrat, it would be a nightmare, even if the public school system were left exactly as it is now.

Some say this would amount to government giving up its central source of privilege in the educational sector. That is precisely why it is the best and most profitable avenue for reform. In the meantime, home schooling may not be a perfect solution, but, like tax shelters, it thrives because it is able to meet a market demand by exploiting loopholes in the law.

Just as importantly, home schooling sends a message to the elites that there are some things, namely children, that are not owned or controlled by the government. Until compulsory schooling laws are completely scrapped, it will continue to be a crucial means for providing the quality education that public schools have failed to provide.

As approaches to education go, I'd say illiterates with diplomas is also pretty rad.