Too much self-interested choice?

David Labaree makes a strong case, albeit one built on circumstantial evidence, that the American education system has gone off the rails. In particular, rampant competition in schools motivated by potential private economic gain has led to a neglect of the public interest component of schooling and increasing stratification. Labaree bemoans the fact that people are responding to the incentives, but economists are neither surprised nor upset by that.