Do Away With Public Schools

by Jonah Goldberg - June 12th, 2007 - Townhall.com

Here's a good question for you: Why have public schools at all?

OK, cue the marching music. We need public schools because blah blah blah and yada yada yada. We could say blah is common culture and yada is the government's interest in promoting the general welfare. Or that children are the future. And a mind is a terrible thing to waste. Because we can't leave any child behind.

The problem with all these bromides is that they leave out the simple fact that one of the surest ways to leave a kid "behind" is to hand him over to the government.

For those of us here in the Inner Banks, an interesting fact mentioned in this article is that Washington DC schools spend $13,000 per student and get as bad a result as we get here. That means that they are spending 50% more than we spend. Yet education adminstrators, here in the Inner Banks and in Washington DC, have only one solution. SPEND MORE MONEY!

No matter how much evidence exists that we spend more than enough money to educate our children, the education bureaucrats are (like a broken record) unable to offer any solution except spend more money. Nations that spend half what we spend here in the Inner Banks, and a third of what Washington DC Spends, are the best in the world.

Our problem is not money. Our problem is stupid bureacrats who will not teach.

Like Jonah I think it is time to start proposing really outrageous solutions that shock people so that we can change the dialog. Right now America is losing its next generation of kids.