Zohran Mamdani won New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary partly on his plan to open five city-owned grocery stores—one in each of New York’s boroughs. The idea is as absurd as it sounds, but it’s a useful lens through which to view another government-run institution we’ve accepted for far too long: the public school system.
The case against government grocery stores is straightforward. Government providers have no incentive to spend money wisely or respond to customers’ needs. Unlike private businesses, which must compete for customers by offering quality goods at reasonable prices, government entities get paid regardless of performance. Tax dollars flow into the system whether the shelves are stocked or empty, whether the service is stellar or abysmal.
This lack of accountability breeds inefficiency and waste. Government employees, shielded by bureaucratic inertia and powerful unions, often see more tax dollars as the solution to every problem, rather than innovation or better management.
In the early days of the Soviet Union, state-controlled grocery stores and food distribution systems led to catastrophic mismanagement, with millions dying during the Russian famine of 1921 to 1922. Those weren’t just government-run, of course; unlike Mamdani’s proposed shops, they were government monopolies. But Venezuela’s recent experiment with government-controlled grocery stores has been a disaster, even with a degree of private competition allowed: Chronic shortages have left shelves empty and citizens queuing for hours for basic goods like bread and milk.
These disasters highlight how government control stifles competition, kills innovation, and leaves citizens with fewer alternatives when the system fails.
Now consider the public school system. It operates under the same flawed principles. Like Mamdani’s hypothetical grocery stores, public schools are funded by tax dollars regardless of their outcomes. In New York City, for example, public schools spend about $40,000 per student annually, yet the 2024 Nation’s Report Card shows less than a quarter of their 8th graders are proficient in math.
They face little pressure to improve because families are trapped by residential assignment, forced to send their children to the school dictated by their ZIP code. This setup gives government schools more monopoly power than a state-run grocery store would have. At least with grocery stores, you could drive to another one. With public schools, families without the means to relocate or afford private alternatives are left with limited options.
Mamdani’s campaign website calls for “public money” for “public” grocery stores, echoing the tired mantra of teachers’ unions, who argue that “public money” should fund only “public schools.” This rhetoric is a deliberate tactic to protect their monopoly, blocking school choice reforms that would allow parents to direct education funds to better options. The unions’ stance, like Mamdani’s, prioritizes government control over outcomes, ignoring the reality that too many public schools fail to deliver.
Teachers’ unions, like the grocery store unions Mamdani might envision, prioritize their members’ interests over those of students or families. They fight for higher salaries, better benefits, and less work, consistently resisting reforms such as merit pay or school choice that would introduce more competition or accountability. The National Education Association spent $66 million on political activities in 2021, largely to protect the status quo. This entrenched power structure ensures that the system serves adults, not children.
Government-run systems, whether they’re distributing food or education, are insulated from the consequences of failure. Private grocery stores innovate because they must compete. Public schools face no such pressure. Residential assignment and compulsory schooling laws guarantee these institutions a steady flow of students and tax dollars.
The solution is to empower people with options. School choice programs allow parents to direct education funds to the places that best meet their children’s needs. These programs introduce competition, forcing schools to innovate and improve.
If we recoil at the idea of government controlling our food supply, we should be even more skeptical of its stranglehold on education. It’s time to give families the freedom to shop for education the way they shop for groceries—based on quality, not government mandate.
