Reading, Writing, and… Labor Studies

John Combest links to an article about the University of Missouri at Kansas City. UMKC is getting rid of its Institute for Labor Studies, which offered a certificate for people who want to be union leaders:

With the elimination of the institute, the only labor-education and worker-training program of its kind in the Kansas City area, Judith Ancel could be out of a job.

“I feel enormously disappointed,” said Ancel, who has run the institute since 1985 and is its only full-time staff member. “To destroy this labor education program is really depriving our citizens, most of whom are working people, of a dialogue that is not biased.”

Good for UMKC. It looks like this program was a waste of tax money. Not that private schools are always much better at avoiding fluff courses — my alma mater offers several majors with little academic content — but at least private schools have to find customers to pay full tuition.

The rationale for public schooling is that it gives students skills and knowledge that the rest of us benefit from. We’re then willing to pay for it in taxes because of the huge positive externality. Dialogue for union leaders just doesn’t help taxpayers enough to warrant the expense.