Mammon and others:
The E. G. West Centre Website is an excellent resource for those interested in promoting market education. Their website is:
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/egwest/index.html
And this list of academic articles is particularly helpful for those looking for "the numbers":
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/egwest/egwest/academic_articles.htm
The article "The Political Economy of Public School Legislation" is really superb. It's definitely worth getting a copy. The website above has a link that allows you to request a hard copy (I believe it's free). Or if you're at a college or have access to a college library, you can find the article on the JSTOR database. Ask your librarian if you need help. The article is by E. G. West, and it's in the October 1967 Journal of Law and Economics.
There are also several good books around. I'm currently reading Market Education: The Unknown History by Andrew Coulson, and I'm very happy with it so far. Also worth reading is What America Can Learn From School Choice in Other Countries, edited by David Salisbury and James Tooley (http://www.catostore.org/index.asp?fa=ProductDetails&method=&pid=1441247). Cato actually has a number of books that are highly critical of public education (http://www.catostore.org/index.asp?fa=ShowBookIndex&scid=16), but I have only read the Salisbury and Tooley book, so I can't comment on the others.
