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It's All About Freedom!

Freedom in Education - A Call for Action

The 1999 Minnesota Legislative Session was once again a session where everyone was trying to top everyone else in their "dedication" to education. This was done by piling increase upon increase on the ever expanding monster that is "public" education. Meanwhile the Maple River Education Coalition was at the capitol trying to junk The Profile (or was that Profiles, or High Standards?) and return control to local school districts. The stated goal of these actions is to improve public education. This bird won't fly. Public education is government education. It is a socialist institution and therefore will always be inefficient, unresponsive and unable to meet the needs of each individual.

"It's time to admit that public education operates like a planned economy, a bureaucratic system in which everybody's role is spelled out in advance and there are few incentives for innovation and productivity. It's no surprise that our school system doesn't improve: It more resembles the communist economy than our own market economy."

--Albert Shanker - During his time as head of the American Federation of Teachers

If you believe in the benefits of a free market economy, you know that it results in better products, at lower prices with more choices for everyone. Conversely we know that government controlled activities are inefficient and bureaucratic, with no choice allowed. The collapse of the communist block exposed the utter failure of centrally controlled economies that could never be fixed by any of the grandiose five year plans devised by government planners. Free marketers oppose further government control of the health care industry because we know what the results are: less choice, higher cost and longer waits.

"The education of all children, from the moment that they can get along without a mother's care, shall be in state institutions at state expense."

Karl Marx - Father of Communism (1848)

If you believe in the importance of teaching traditional values and believe that your children's school should respect your beliefs, you know that these values are under attack in the government run schools.

If you believe that the purpose of education is the development of well-rounded individuals with a solid background in reading, literature, math, history and the sciences, you know these beliefs are being challenged by education fads (at best) or by a cynical system that views individuals as nothing more than "human resource capital" to be used as needed by the government and big business.

"State education is a mere contrivance for molding people to be exactly alike one another, ...in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by a natural tendency to one over the body."

John Stuart Mill (1859)

If you believe in the importance of freedom of thought and open discussion, you know these values are being challenged by politically correct codes and rules.

If you believe that each person is a unique individual with inalienable (or God given) rights to pursue their hopes and dreams, you know – well see above.

Why do people who call themselves conservatives and believers in the free market continue to support a socialist institution? Why do Christians, who believe in parental responsibility and instilling Christian values, turn the responsibility of educating their children over to the state? Instead of continuing to feed the beast, while trying to tame it, we should realize that feeding it only makes it bigger and harder to control. If we truly want the best education possible for everyone, we must bring back freedom, choice and true parental control. The only way to accomplish this is to Separate School and State. We need to remove education from politics and once again put parents in charge.

"We who are engaged in the sacred cause of education are entitled to look upon all parents as having given hostages to our cause."

Horace Mann, father of common (government) school movement

Government run schools are both immoral and impractical. The word education is a Latin word meaning "to lead forth into wholeness." A well-rounded education cannot be separated from values. The government through compulsory attendance and funding (taxes) is committing an immoral act. It is indoctrinating students with its proscribed values and forcing parents and non parents alike to fund the teaching of these values, whether they agree with them or not. It is the epitome of immorality to force parents to submit their children to indoctrination in values that the parents find abhorrent while at the same time forcing these parents (and others) to financially support this indoctrination.

Government education is impractical because it is inefficient. The typical private elementary school in Minnesota spends half as much per pupil as the typical government elementary school in Minnesota. In general these private schools achieve better results than their government school counterparts. Furthermore; contrary to what the education establishment would have us believe the demographics of private schools are very similar to those of the government schools. Why does this cost discrepancy exist between government and private schools? It is because private schools must compete in the free market where the parents are true consumers. Parents who send their children to private schools look at cost and results when making a decision on whether to choose a particular school. If private schools allow costs to soar or results to decline, they know that they will soon lose their customers and cease to exist. Government schools on the other hand do not operate in the realm of the free market. They operate in the realm of politics. Government schools serve the special interests who have the money and power to lobby at the capitol. Government schools don't have to worry about parents since they have guaranteed funding through taxes and unless they can afford to leave the parents are virtual captives of the system.

How do we begin to slay the beast? The answer is not vouchers. The use of vouchers will merely allow the beast to wrap its claws around non government education and mold private schools into a twin of the beast. The solution will come about through a combination of different efforts:

1. Parents, who can, must remove their children from government schools. Enrolling them in private schools or home schooling them.

2. Parents and non parents alike should financially support private education.

3. As an interim measure to allow the free market to develop the system to handle the 90% of children currently in government schools. Provide tax credits to all taxpayers (parents and non parents) for contributions to non government education.

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Page Updated: August 20, 2005

© Copyright 1999 - 2005 by Jim Rongstad. Permission to use is granted as long as author is acknowledged.