This is an excerpt from Individual Rights and Government Wrongs.
After passage of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Barack Obama’s first economic stimulus), which earmarked more than $100 billion for public education, the White House website listed President Obama’s goals for improving America’s government schools. “Providing a high-quality education for all children,” the site stated, “is critical to America’s economic future.” To accomplish this,
President Obama is committed to providing every child access to a complete and competitive education, from cradle through career. … He will invest in innovative strategies to help teachers to improve student outcomes, and use rewards and incentives to keep talented teachers in the schools that need them the most. President Obama will invest in a national effort to prepare and reward outstanding teachers…
Is more money and expanded government “investment” the answer to America’s educational woes? Is public education necessary, as many claim, for the poor to receive an adequate education to compete in today’s global marketplace? Is education a human right? Should government even be involved in education? While few would argue about the importance of education, there is great disagreement over the answers to these questions.
Unfortunately, even some of the Founding Fathers were confused on this issue. Thomas Jefferson, for example, once proposed an amendment to the Constitution to provide public education. However, we can forgive Jefferson for his views on the subject. He did not have the benefit of witnessing the history of public education or the horrible condition of government schools today. But for us, the evidence should be clear. If the goal of government schools is a “high-quality education,” those schools are an absolute failure. And they are a failure because they rely on government coercion to obtain both funding and “customers.”
Today, education is a virtual monopoly of the government. While home schooling and private schools have grown in popularity in recent decades, government schools remain the dominant source of education for most American children. Indeed, approximately 85 percent of America’s schoolchildren attend government schools, primarily because these schools are “free.” Of course, these schools are not free. Their costs are borne by you and other taxpayers, which includes parents and non-parents alike.
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