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It's All About Freedom!

Education is Too Valuable to be Subject to Politics - Part Two

My response:

In his guest column ( January 5, 2000), South Washington County School Board member Jim Gelbmann makes several statements about my guest column that call for a response. First, I never stated that Mr. Gelbmann was not a parent and he knows this. Mr. Gelbmann is not my children's parent, nor the parent of any children but his own. My point is that parents have the right and responsibility to make decisions regarding the education of their own children. I do not want to impose my decisions on Mr. Gelbmann's children. I ask that he not impose his decisions on mine.

Second, it appears Mr. Gelbmann is trying to make the absurd argument that since he and other school board members are parents, that somehow this means that government education is not a political matter. Does Mr. Gelbmann deny that the state wields great power over the actions of individual school districts? If the state does not, why does the school district need to lobby the state legislature on issues such as the school aid formula? Is Mr. Gelbmann going to claim that since most of our state legislators are parents, that the decisions they make and the system they operate under is not political? I don't think so.

Finally, how does Mr. Gelbmann define subsidies? Are not taxpayers subsidizing Mr. Gelbmann's choice to have children and have them attend government schools? I suspect that Mr. Gelbmann would reply that education benefits the whole community and that is why taxpayers subsidize it. If that is his argument, why does this education have to be in a government run institution? If education is for the children and society, why must it be tied to a politically run government system?

Mr. Gelbmann claims that an education tax credit would be a public subsidy of private education at the expense of "public" education. A tax credit is a dollar for dollar reduction in an individual's tax bill. This money has been earned by the individual receiving the credit. Further, if we accept the premise that the community should support the education of all children and some parents choose to educate their children outside the government schools,does this not reduce the cost to the government school since the child will not be attending that school?

Government schools are a monopoly. We need a diversity of education choices that only competition and freedom can provide.

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