Markets in education

City Journal reviews The Beautiful Tree, A Personal Journey Into How the World' Poorest People Are Educating Themselves:

But while on a sightseeing excursion to the city’s teeming slums, Tooley observed something peculiar: private schools were just as prevalent in these struggling areas as in the nicer neighborhoods. Everywhere he spotted hand-painted signs advertising locally run educational enterprises.
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When he related his Hyderabad discovery at the World Bank office in Delhi, for example, one staffer “launched into a tirade”: such private schools, she said, were ramshackle and shoddy; they ripped off the poor by charging money for worthless instruction; their owners were motivated solely by profits; and their teachers were unqualified, unskilled, and ineffective.
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The data Tooley unearthed are fascinating. Not only do networks of private schools for the poor exist across the developing world—networks that emerged without any government- or NGO-sponsored help—but their students learn far more than do those of government- and NGO-funded public schools.

Milton Friedman would love this book.