Eliminate Public Schools
The following is a fictionalized scenario of what might result if the public schools were eliminated. At the moment this idea has a near-zero, if not zero, chance of happening, particularly in those states whose constitutions now contain or have been construed to contain provisions enshrining a “positive right” to an education, meaning a positive claim upon the labor and property of others, a claim backed by the left’s stock-in-trade, the coercive force of the state. As resistance to ever-bigger government increases, with a commensurate greater appreciation for individual liberty, state constitutions will be re-examined, perhaps even amended. What follows is not a prediction, only an exploration which in turn may lead to better ideas. Finally, readers should bear in mind that eliminating public schooling is not the elimination of education, but rather the expansion of both freedom and education.
“Alright, George Bailey, you’ve got your wish. The public schools were never invented. Now stay calm, and don’t fret about the many strange but freedom-affirming phenomena you’ll encounter as you stroll through a re-invigorated Bedford Falls. Ready?”
Freedom for Taxpayers. Property taxpayers would no longer support a system which even its supporters readily admit must be “structurally improved” [Statist-ese for, “Give us more money”]. Anything in constant need of major improvements, not just routine adjustment, which produces uneducated “graduates” year after year (JayWalking anyone?), for decades on end, is irredeemable, netting very poor investment returns for taxpayers despite huge outlays. Since a sizable percentage of local municipal budgets (usually well over 50%, typically with supplemental “help” from state capitols) is dedicated to school funding, the elimination of this line item will give meaningful property tax relief.
Freedom for Municipalities. In the view of some – though at this point in time not nearly enough – all education is intrinsically coupled with morality, religion, and the reason of life itself. Necessarily it cannot then lawfully be a proper function of government if we’re to be serious about individual liberty and separating church and state. Governmental involvement in matters with religious overtones and nuances including differing worldviews conflicts with the Establishment Clause and state constitutional counterparts. Freed of school budgets, cities and towns will confine themselves to matters within their appropriate purview, generally subjects associated with public safety.
Freedom for Parents. Parents, relieved of a portion of their property tax burden, will have greater disposable income with which they may choose a private school appropriate for their child. Including a home school. Today, families wanting alternative schooling for their child/ren pay two tuitions, one to the chosen school directly, another to the municipality to support the public schools.
Freedom for Students. Relief to students who simply do not want to spend time in school for whatever reason (e.g., attitude, disinterest, safety concerns). Relief from One-Size-Fits-All-ism. How these now-emancipated students will choose to spend their newly-acquired time and freedom will be left to them and their parents. For the student willing to learn there will be choices galore as a thousand points of light evolve following the demise of the public schools. Throughout their history Americans have shown themselves to be both generous and ingenious. From scholarships and tuition assistance (remember, property tax relief will enable all citizens to spend their property tax relief as they see fit, not as government sees fit) to an array of different school types, all manner of ideas will come forth on “what to do with all those children.” To believe otherwise is to concede that we have lost our way as well as our senses of freedom and personal responsibility, and that only overseeing superintendent-esque nannies can save us.
Repealing the truancy and compulsory attendance laws frees students enabling but also requiring them to become personally responsible for usefully filling their time, simultaneously serving as a sobering means of correcting immature attitudes via a dose of reality. Students and parents will of necessity become discerning consumers of those educational services which they desire. Consider this example. A parent/s believes that comprehensive sex education, including awareness of all different perspectives of human sexuality, is an important educational value and that such information should be taught, at all grade levels, to his/her/their child. These parents will choose, through free association and without compulsion, schools accommodating their expressed wishes. While acknowledging the rights of those parents to choose as they may, other parents might avoid those choices, preferring instead other educational values which for them may include emphasis on math & science, fine arts, building trades, mechanics, religious instruction, and so forth. They too will decide through free association and without compulsion. Open choice aka freedom aka liberty will enable each educational consumer to receive the specific educational values which he/she/they seek/s without the application of governmental force upon others who do not share or want those educational choices.
Freedom for Teachers. To those who tsk-tsk the viable idea of doing away with the public schools, they should know that eliminating the public schools will not be the end of education. To the contrary it will encourage genuine learning. In an atmosphere of non-compulsion students who want to learn a chosen curriculum will present themselves before teachers who want to teach. The discipline problems of which teachers complain, including bullying, will largely disappear. Teaching to willing students is a joy unto itself. Having been a teacher in several venues – as seminar instructor on tax law matters to other accounting, tax & legal professionals; as host of numerous client seminars; as a homeschooling parent – I am keenly aware of how fulfilling it is to teach receptive students.
Freedom from Incompetence or Indifference. Every large public school system has its “rubber rooms” (search, “rubber rooms Stossel”) to which incompetent, insubordinate, or dangerous teachers are assigned, at full pay, while their cases for dismissal wend their way through a labyrinth of union contract provisions. Why such rooms? Because in the perverse world of public schools it is next to impossible to get rid of bad teachers. Despite the overriding concern, stated endlessly by politicians, bureaucrats and unions, of how much they all want to “educate the children,” the game is really about protecting government and its employees. Big government types, invariably “led” by Democrats and lapdog teachers’ unions, are the biggest offenders. Bureaucrats and union members have little concern whether children learn or not; their principal worry is their own paycheck. And please, let’s not hear about the many fine, dedicated teachers, blah, blah, blah. Even if true, these teachers are like students and parents: trapped in the grip of the union–big government vise. The fine intentions of these teachers will never loosen this grip; only an adherence to limited government and a commitment to personal responsibility will do that.
Freedom for the Uninvolved. Elimination corrects an inequity visited upon those who have no current direct stake in the educational system. Why should those who have no school-aged children be burdened with the schooling costs of those who do? If you choose to raise children, your obligations include clothing, sustenance, housing, and education. Before setting out, the cost is to be counted. The decision to start a family was yours, not that of your elderly, childless, or empty-nest neighbors. It doesn’t take a village to raise a family: it takes a responsible mom and a responsible dad. As matters now stand your neighbors, not exercising any influence in your family-raising decision, are sent the bill for educating your children. All sorts of rationales are given for continuing this unfairness. They reduce to one: We benefit when all citizens are educated, or in bumper sticker language, If you think public education is expensive, try ignorance. This slogan’s encapsulated arrogance assumes that people are incapable of acting in their own best interests and would forever remain inert until the Nanny State intercedes and affects a rescue, all for their own good you must understand. Who else but leftists sell people for such short money? If those who are inadequately prepared understand that the principal difference between themselves and others who have better prospects, employment, or social standing, is education, common sense says that the former will know what to do.
Freedom to Choose. Each of us has different driving wants and needs; we choose cars accordingly, based on factors which include cost, safety, options, color, type (sedans, wagons, SUVs, minivans, pickups, light & heavy duty trucks, et alia). Yet the choice of schooling, also subject to a variety of factors, is far more determinative of an individual’s life direction than the choice of a car whose life span is a matter of mere years. Freedom prevails when parents and students, acting as consumers, make thoughtful choices for their purposes among competing alternatives with funds that would otherwise have been taken from them and wasted on a scheme that has failed for decades. Even leftists endorse educational choice, but only for themselves. When given the chance, leftists never choose the public option. Obama’s daughters go to private schools, as did Chelsea Clinton, as did Ted Kennedy’s kids. If this is leadership by example, then the people too should be able to choose. “Do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do.”
What is more, genuine educational choice (without a public option) will defuse, at least in the school setting, many of society’s divisive issues, issues brought into the public schools through raw political power imposed on students, a captive, generally powerless audience. Without forced public schooling there would be no more of the seemingly endless battles on church-state separation and courses on human sexuality. Gone and unmissed will be battles over religious songs and symbols, whether religious days special to a particular faith should be recognized as school holidays, refusals to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, prayers at games or graduations. Mandatory sex education and associated hot-button topics such as abortion counseling, creationism, evolution, environ-ism, and countless other subjects which at best are only marginally tangential to core academic subjects, will be dealt with in a manner agreeable to students and parents since they as consumers will be freely choosing schools compatible with their wishes and expectations in these areas.
Tuition will be reasonable as schools will no longer be forced by law to deal with the selfish demands of public employee unions. Rather than serving the interests of their employees and administrators, schools will compete as every other successful consumer service competes, by placing the customer, here parents and students, not employees, as Priority #1. Sometime in the 1980s I heard Lane Kirkland, a then important union leader, speak at an American Federation of Teachers function. After his prepared remarks he took some questions one of which touched on the declining academic achievements of students. His blunt and forceful answer remains with me to this day. Paraphrased, “When children become union members paying union dues, then I’ll care about children’s education.”
Ending educational compulsion will bring freedom and freedom will bring responsibility and accountability. Schools in the post–public school era will be burdened to please their customers, parents and students, if they wish to succeed. Today, failing public schools are neither punished nor eliminated; rather, in the eccentric world that defines the “public domain,” they’re rewarded by being allowed to continue, often with increased funding, in order to “self-correct.” Bailouts may be new to Wall Street & Detroit carmakers, but bailouts have long been a part of failed public school systems.
Tomorrow, we’ll discuss the beneficial effects accruing to the American system of federalism, which will naturally flow from the elimination of public schooling.
Regards,
Paul Galvin
LewRockwell.com
Whiskey & Gunpowder
May 3, 2010
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Mr. Gavin,
With all due respect, are you out of your F*&KING mind or was this article simply an excercise in mental masterbation, reflecting upon your own desires not to attend school ???
First and foremost, do you honestly believe that the city, state and fed gov’ts will decrease the tax burden on property owners, once the public schools are closed ??? Comeon……I thought you’re smarter than that and I’m sure you know that once the gov’t gets their hands on your tax money, you’ve got to fight them to get anything back.
Obviously school boards waste obscene amounts of money, with our education system teaching to the test and making sure the dumbest kid isn’t left behind, no matter how much you sacrifice the time given to the smartest kids. I agree that it’s a badly broken system, with the school boards viciously protecting their castles and budgets and they’re the ones who should be thrown out first.
How about all of the teachers who’d be thrown into the street without a job ? You also mention that the kids of today would find other avenues for education, while learning the value of personal responsiblity, Have you spoken to or met any children in the last 10-20 years ??? Personal responsibilty is a thing of the past and setting these children upon society without any direction, would be like Jefferson explaining why he didn’t free the slaves after becoming president. They would do way more harm to society if left to their own devices, than to keep them contained until 18 by mandatory education.
I’m the first one to agree that the junior high and high school system & school boards around the country need to be completely rebuilt, with teachers being held accountable, parents held responsible for their kids behavior and the kids being taught personal responsiblity, but that will never happen with the PC bull$hit of todays world.
With the economy being much worse in the last 20 years that require both parents work full time jobs, the school systems become that much more important. The society who refuses to educate their children, will be destroyed within 2 generations.
Ray
I wonder, if there were no government schools, how would kids get an education? I think food can give us some ideas.
Education of children comes close after food, shelter, and clothing in importance. If food is more important than education, why don’t we have Public Feeding? Let’s imagine how things might be if the government were responsible for feeding kids as well as educating them.
We could elect a Food Board to decide what food could be served, who is qualified to prepare and serve it, and where and when it would be served. I am picturing lower cafeterias, middle cafeterias, and upper cafeterias. Adventurous reformers could ask for vouchers for approved cafeterias, or maybe even a charter cafeteria. Forget about shopping, home cooked meals, bag lunches, restaurants, and sandwich shops. Now imagine the variety, savings, quality, and choice we might have in education with a free market in schools.
I think the confusion may start when we say “our kids”. Unless we have had conjugal relations or adopted, there is no such thing as “our kids,” only your kids, my kids, and their kids. Is it really fair to take someone’s house away if they can’t or don’t want to pay for my kids’ education? I don’t think so.
Of course without Public Feeding some kids can go hungry. Is that enough of a reason to institute Public Feeding for all kids? If only there were some way to help and inspire the needy without threatening to take homes away. Maybe private and religious charity? If we care enough about a service in our community to take our neighbor’s house away providing it, maybe we care enough to contribute voluntarily too. Especially if we still have the money we would have paid in property taxes.
I think the idea of getting rid of public schools would probably work out fine for many middle class families, but do you really think that for many of the lower income families that are already not taking proper responsbility for their education would suddenly turn around? It’s quite apparent that most lower income people do NOT take being able to afford kids into account when the decision is made to have them (many still don’t even use birth control) In fact I hear this all the time even from middle class people, “oh, it will all work out”.
I think I could strongly support a voucher system, but not so sure that soceity would really be better if we got rid of public funding of education. A well educated populace has both public and private benefits. If you can get the kids into school instead of breaking into your house or car, I think that’s a good trade off usually.
First let me set the stage. I was a very bad student. Described as having the learning disability called laziness by my father. Despite this I did manage to graduate with a mediocre degree, and finally a degree from a highly regarded graduate business school. I taught high school for one year and saw from the inside how bad it was. And it has become worse since then. Many graduate high school but remain functionally illiterate, and now knowing how to add and subtract without a calculator.
While I don’t agree with everything you said, I believe you are right more than you are wrong. Unions are the worst thing that could have happened to the current public education system. They completely eliminate the notion of merit. That combined with the notion that everyone is entitled to a formal, tax payer provided education up to a certain level has created something virtually designed to fail. This last notion ignores the fact that everyone is different, and everyone learns in a different way. It also ignores the fact that some of the best educated people one can meet have been self educated. And self education can be ongoing.
If I had to choose one action to take to make dramatic improvements it would be to get rid of unions. There at least the parents wouldn’t care. Getting rid of the entire system would be too scary for most parents. Unfortunately getting rid of unions is not doable under the current US administration.
Dear Sir,
The money thrown at public education, year after year in the U.S, versus the results that tax payers get back is joke at best. Y ou are 100% correct the whole public school system should be scrapped so that people can make their own choices on how to educate their children.
I have thought of these things many times over the years. How much better education would actually be if the govt. monopoly in education no longer existed, and the govt. got out of th way of people making individual choices for the education of their children?
However because of the power the current status quo of public education gives to the unions, the pandering politicans and the administrators in each school taxing district, not to mention those that want to do social engineering as they have for years through the public school system…I don’t see this idea happening in my life time, but good to know somebody else is thinking along these lines as well.
Thank you for helping move this debate forward.
Sincerely,
T. Albanese
Public school is child abuse.
From what I see of private schools, they are not much better.
Who cares the most for a child? The parents silly.
Home school is the most fun one can ever love to do.
Imagine the most precious gift, growing, learning and blossoming before your eyes.
What about the thrown away children?
Children grown without sufficient protein, their brains never developed fully.
What will they do?
How will they live?
As a society, we are going to pay for that.
I love this article. This one idea, if implemented, would unleash freedom and creativity in our captive land. As for all the teachers who would be unemployed – good! It’s about time! Now we would see the wisdom of the saying: Those who can do, those who can’t teach. I would take it a step further and disband the Federal Government. Return to a loose confederation of States. Can you imagine the savings in worthless overhead? Brilliant!
I totally agree and you are not insane. The insanity is to continue down a course that does not work, costs hundreds of billions, and leaves us with a young resident that believes in his rights to have whatever he needs and wants without having to know how to do anything whatsoever.
We homeschooled both ours through the eighth grade and Christian school till college. It involved 2 hours a day through the eighth grade. One graduated college witha 4.0 in Chemistry, the other with a 3.5 in History. We paid thousands in county school taxes for everyone else. Because of the shortened school day, there was time for music lessons and music and field trips galore. Both are accomplished musicians and one a songwriter.
Untold billions have been poured down the chute labeled “education” with results trickling out in the inverse. We have paid for diamonds and received trinketts from boxes of Cracker Jacks. I don’t think we ever received the Cracker Jacks.
I went to government school and it is not a total waste. We were locked up and kept out of trouble with some entertaining sports on which to “thrive”. I and the other inmates got out at 3:00 PM. However, there was one teacher in the seventh grade who made us practically memorize the Declaration and the Constitution. It was there that I saw what we, “US” could be in contrast to what we, “US” had become. Education, like religion, is way too important to be left to the government. If memory serves correctly, Article one, Section 8 has about 18 things in which the Feds can lawfully engage. As we say here in the south, edjumication ain’t one uv em.
As long as the guvment is in charge of the schooling, our children are going to know less and less about more and more till they know nothing about everthing all achieved through infinite cost.
Good article.
Ed Croker
PS….. as education gets more and more local, I protest less and less. When there is competition among districts there is at least the possibility of better education. When we are told how and what to teach from Washington we will have…….. what we have now and worse.
[...] Eliminate Public Schools [...]
[...] Yesterday, many of the local benefits to flow from the elimination of the public schools were outlined. But eliminating public schooling, an institution not extant at the country’s founding, would have national implications extending well beyond the boundaries of any one state. Chief beneficiaries would be an overall strengthening, and rehabilitation, of the American federal system and an increase in individual liberty. [...]
I think the educational system is shut to. Look kelly Bundy. You she could barely chew gum and walk at the same time. Good thing Al Bundy was football legend and hero at the highschool or she would of never recieved her diploma. She might of also slept with some of her teachers. She was pretty hot and she was 18 her senior year. SO I could not blame any male teachers for giving her an A.
Thats my repost to this story. Something oddball thats way out of leftfield. Lets let the Bundy’s pave the way. I am a NO MAAM member. National Organization of Men Against Amazonian Mastership
[...] Whiskey and Gunpowder [...]
What a great article–and a lot of excellent responses. I said many of the same things in “Educating the Masses,” including that our Texas Constitution says only that we must have “a plan for educating the children.” Mr. Galvin said it better!
[...] Whiskey and Gunpowder – Eliminate Public Schools, Part 1 [...]
Mr. Galvin: If you are interested in seeing a future without public schools I suggest you take a trip down south. There are several countries in South and Central America with either anemic or non-existent public school systems. They are the source of the continuing failure of those countries to compete in an increasingly competitive international economy. Public Education is a consequence of modern society. Where did those textile jobs go when they left the U.S. leading the trend to the off shoring of the middle class in this country?
They went to those uneducated sectors where poor ignorant campesinos were bussed in using the very same school buses discarded used to send you and your generation to those public schools responsible for educating you to the point where you can espouse your selfish well worn justification for limiting competition from your peers.
The same excuses for the sub human treatment of these people are used in those cultures are were used in this country a short 60 years ago. ‘Maleducato’ ‘Ignorante’ ‘Malcreado’ ‘Estupido’….The litany goes on.
As far as I can see, the promise of spreading the “American Dream” hasn’t worked out too well in those societies to date.
I learned to think as a result of public education. What I have learned to date vis a vie the economy can be summed up in a sentence: Failure of economy is a failure of imagination. The failure that we are living through happens from time to time. The last time it hurt this bad was back in the depression.
The failure was in societies leaders to imagine a future that wasn’t based upon the agricultural economy. But the progressives were successful – in bits and pieces – to imagine a society based upon mass consumption of things which resulted from industrial mass production.
The information economy has been with us for almost 60 years and is growing every year. That economy, by nature of it’s name, implies that educational standards and norms be maintained for the next generation to go forward based upon the things that we have codified as facts in this generation.
Your solution is somewhat akin to encouraging the demolition of railroads, highways, electrical systems, and shipping that was integral to the results that we enjoy today in communicating through this electronic medium – which is in and of itself nothing short of miraculous.
There is one common thread between the modern miracle givers of this latest generation: Larry Ellis, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs et al….All enjoyed the fruits of a full secondary educational system…It was a standard established by all of those you demonize in your rant of an article.
While I agree that we need some change on the theme of education in this country, I would never espouse the back to the stone ages solution that you, and too many Americans seem to believe to be advocating in this time of transition.
And one other thing that I realized in my education: Selfishness is the root of all evil…Think about it!
[...] Eliminate Public Schools [...]
If we don’t feed children, a government agency will take the children away and make sure their basic needs are taken care of.
What sort of institution would you suggest for parents who neglect to pay for private school for their kids? Or are you of the opinion that parents are qualified to decide whether their kids get basic education?
Why do the rich tend to be more educated (socially as well as academically) than the poor?
In the inner cities most parents send their kids to school for either one or two reasons;
1. In most states the law says they must go
2.. To get the kid out of the house.
I worked in a high school that had 2000+ students. Parent involvement was basically minimal. Parent Teacher conferences would often bring out no more than 1 or 2 percent of the student body’s parents. I’d see more parents at basketball games than at PTA meetings.
“How these now-emancipated students will choose to spend their newly-acquired time and freedom will be left to them and their parents”.
If you close the inner city public schools the kids and their parents won’t have many alternatives. Most black children are born out-of-wedlock, and are raised by single women. In most cases these women don’t have an education themselves. And it’s a well known fact that many black uneducated children wind up in the penal system. What you’ll need to do is find a way to make incarceration cheaper. Converting most of the schools into prisons would save on the cost of building new ones.
[...] in a public school have limits? (Personally, my answer is that we should dramatically reform or consider eliminating public schools altogether, but that’s a subject for another [...]