Why Public Schools Can Never Be Private Schools

Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, almost didn’t make it. Vice President Mike Pence had to cast the deciding vote for her confirmation by the U.S. Senate.

The objection involved the nominee’s support of charter schools. All Democrats and some Republicans dislike charter schools. Why? Don’t they increase quality and standards? Yes, but … they also increase accountability. And as irrational as it sounds, accountability is the last thing that supporters of public schools want, because it could eventually put those public schools out of business.

It’s so easy to be in favor of “public schools,” as a factless, out-of-context abstraction. To be against public schools, we’re told, is to be against education. “You don’t want government funding of education? What’s wrong with you? Are you in favor of illiteracy and ignorance?” As if education could never occur without the government!

Actually, opposition to illiteracy and ignorance is the best reason to be against government involvement in education. Particularly when the government has a virtual deadlock and monopoly on the whole process of educating children, as it currently does in the United States.

The majority of Americans can plainly see that billions upon billions of dollars — more billions piled on every year — do not lead to greater quality in education. The dumbing down of American culture fostered by public schools has been gradual but unmistakable. It has led to more politicization of education, where children are groomed to become good little socialist progressives. Based on the recent election, at least half of the population doesn’t approve.

So why do we still have public education?  The more the federal government promises to get education right this time, the more mediocre (or worse) it gets. Hope springs eternal. And denial is an amazing thing.

Sadly, even if Trump and his new Secretary of Education get their way, the vouchers and other faux privatization ideas they propose will not resolve the problem. Taking government money and giving it to private schools will alter the nature and dynamics of private schools the first moment they receive government funds. Look at America’s universities. The most prominent private ones all receive billions in government funds. What happens? They’re bastions of political correctness and intolerant of any and all dissent. Government dollars have a way of chilling intellectual curiosity and expression, as well as tainting just about everything they touch.

Charter schools are an attempt to inject some level of choice, quality and accountability into education as we know it. And that’s precisely why the opposition to them is so intense. Find me one high-profile politician in favor of public schooling and against charter schools who sends his or her children to public schools. Barack Obama was the most recent example. His kids went to elite private schools just like all good Democratic politicians’ children. This tells you something. The people who impose this government monopoly on everyone else will never participate in it themselves.

It’s not hypocrisy. It’s tyranny.

The bottom line difference between a free market for education and the public school system we have now? Private schools can go out of business; public schools cannot. In fact, the worse public schools perform, the more money we send them. It’s the precise opposite of what a free market provides.

Earth to Americans: You would never permit the federal government to monopolize and completely control the sale and manufacturing of computers or cell phones. So why on earth do you insist that something as important as teaching children how to think be left to corrupt politicians and bureaucratic ineptitude?

Allowing politicians largely monopolistic control over education would be like placing convicted child molesters in charge of sex education. It’s beyond insane. It’s time for public education as we know it to end.

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