Advocates of government schools often point out that Texas has a constitutional requirement to provide education for all. Article 7, Section 1 of the state constitution declares:
A general diffusion of knowledge being essential to the preservation of the liberties and rights of the people, it shall be the duty of the Legislature of the State to establish and make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools.
The fact that some provision is in the constitution does not make a policy proper or moral. Lest we forget, the Constitution of the Republic of Texas, ratified in 1836, legalized slavery. No rational person would claim that this made slavery proper or moral.
Having educated citizens is certainly desirable. But we cannot consider desirable ends while evading the full context. And dropping context is what the above provision of the constitution does. The provision states that a “general diffusion of knowledge being essential to the preservation of the liberties and rights of the people….” The provision then proceeds to violate the liberties and rights of the people.
The government schools established by Article 7, Section 1 compel individuals to provide financial support through taxation. Individuals have neither the liberty nor the right to abstain from providing financial support for government schools.
Liberty means the absence of coercion. It means that individuals can act as they judge best, so long as they respect the freedom of others to do the same. Rights protect that freedom. The coercive funding of government schools eliminates freedom in the realm of education.
If we seriously want to improve the education of students across Texas, then we must have a serious conversation about whether government schools are proper and moral. So long as we ignore this fundamental issue, education will remain a political football, and a variety of special interest groups will continue to compete for control.
Texas re-wrote its constitution and eliminated the legalization of slavery. It is time that we re-write the constitution to remove the mandate for government schools.