Is there a more destructive and untrustworthy institution than government? The world over, governments are responsible for barbaric atrocities committed on a daily basis. Even here in the "Land of the Free" we are surveilled, taxed, and regulated on a massive scale. The United States is responsible for killing untold numbers of foreign people while maintaining the world's largest prison population at home. They take your money and shower it on well connected corporations and the shiftless alike. They subsidize poor diets, promote harmful medical practices, wage immoral wars, outlaw voluntary activities, make it more difficult to produce goods and services, violate property rights, seek to disarm the public, and even attempt to regulate the sexual activity of consenting adults. And then they lie to your face about EVERYTHING. Go ahead and Google "politicians caught lying". See how long it takes you to browse through the 36,000,000 results. For all these reasons and many more, most people say they do not trust politicians. But then those same people will defend the existence of government schooling for children.
Why do we do it? Why do we allow the same stealing, cheating, killing bureaucrats to claim a right to molding our children's minds? My parents sent me to government schools and my oldest daughter attends a government school today. Part of the problem is that schooling is compulsory. And since taxpayers are forced to fund the government schools, whether they have children or not, the additional cost is much less if you choose a government school over a private school. Homeschooling is a good option, but with the Federal Reserve's never ending war on low prices (or deflation, as they call it), it is increasingly difficult to support a family on one paycheck. For my part, I am trying to make an effort to make sure my daughter is actually learning and encourage her to explore subjects she is interested in. I ask her what she is learning and I ask her opinions on what she is learning. My hope is that these conversations help her to learn to think, which is the most important task of any teacher. And parents, of course, are the most influential teachers a child has, for better or worse.
I was recently discussing this with a co-worker who couldn't disagree with me more. When I explained that I believe after a child is taught the foundation of learning -reading, writing, and arithmetic- they should then have an individualized education that is catered to their interests and aptitude, he literally laughed at me. He told me that all children must be taught the same things. He specifically used the example of the need for every 5th grader to learn the state capitals. I then challenged him to go quiz our mutual co-workers, high school graduates all, on the factory floor to see how many state capitals they could name. Perhaps all the time these people spent practicing their skills in rote memorization would have been better utilized for learning how to make a household budget and balance a checkbook. Maybe they could have learned about the value of savings and why it is necessary in order to improve your life. Maybe they could have put those skills to use right away by going to work and benefiting society rather than playing dodge ball.
So, not only are violent criminals (such as Barack Obama and George W. Bush) ultimately in charge of government schools and shaping the agenda of those schools, but we see that these schools also have a poor track record of actually educating children. Some would say that poorly educated students are exactly what the government desires to produce. I believe this is partly true in matters of foreign wars and the nature of the State itself. But I believe a large part of the problem is that the market is not allowed to work and discover solutions. There are many good teachers in these schools who are passionate about teaching. I personally had some good teachers (but not a single great teacher, though I don't doubt they exist). But what is a good teacher to do with a federal one-size-fits-all template for children who are each unique? What are they to do about the discipline cases who clearly do not want to be there and only serve to make it harder for everyone else to learn? A market would cater to the customers who in this case are the parents. There would be no universal template. There would be no teacher's union to protect bad teachers while not properly rewarding the good teachers. There would be no gang problems in schools because gangbangers would not be required to attend and could be expelled at any moment. Education would be what customers desire and at a desirable price.
The picture at the top of this page is of the old Fairmount High School in Fairmount, Indiana. It is the school that both James Dean and Garfield creator Jim Davis attended. It is literally crumbling to the ground. To me, it is almost the perfect illustration of the condition of learning in America. The main difference is that the state of education in America is yet salvageable. But not until we abolish government schools.
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