Sheldon Richman and David Boaz: The Abolition of Public Schooling

David Boaz

David Boaz was a distinguished senior fellow of the Cato Institute and played a key role in the development of the Cato Institute and the libertarian movement. He was the author of The Libertarian Mind: A Manifesto for Freedom and the editor of The Libertarian Reader.

Boaz was a provocative commentator and a leading authority on domestic issues such as education choice, drug legalization, the growth of government, and the rise of libertarianism. Boaz was the former editor of New Guard magazine and was executive director of the Council for a Competitive Economy prior to joining Cato in 1981. The earlier edition of The Libertarian Mind, titled Libertarianism: A Primer, was described by the Los Angeles Times as “a well-​researched manifesto of libertarian ideas.” His other books include The Politics of Freedom and the Cato Handbook for Policymakers.

His articles have been published in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, National Review, and Slate, and he wrote the entry on libertarianism for Encyclopedia Britannica. He was a frequent guest on national television and radio shows and has appeared on ABC’s Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher, CNN’s Crossfire, NPR’s Talk of the Nation and All Things Considered, The McLaughlin Group, Stossel, The Independents, Fox News, BBC, Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and other media.

Sheldon Richman

Sheldon Richman is former vice president and editor at the Future of Freedom Foundation and former senior editor at the Cato Institute and the Institute for Humane Studies. For 15 years he was editor of The Freeman, published by the Foundation for Economic Education in Irvington, New York. He is the author of Separating School & State: How to Liberate America’s Families; Your Money or Your Life: Why We Must Abolish the Income Tax; and Tethered Citizens: Time to Repeal the Welfare State. He runs the Free Association blog at his website, shel​don​rich​man​.com.

Sheldon Richman is the editor of The Freeman (a magazine published by the Foundation for Economic Education), a senior fellow at the Future of Freedom Foundation, and a research fellow at the Independent Institute.

David Boaz is the executive vice president of the Cato Institute, and is the author of Libertarianism: A Primer and The Libertarian Reader (1997) and The Politics of Freedom (2008).

In this video from a Future of Freedom Foundation event in 1996, Richman and Boaz discuss the reception of Richman’s 1994 book, Separating School and State, and talk about what a free market in education would look like and how America can move in the direction of educational freedom.