I’m going to propose a radically American idea here, and it’s one I’m likely to be targeted for even mentioning, much less arguing for forcefully. Just hear me out. I say this with all intent and sincerity: It’s time to remove the government — on every level — from the education process.
Yeah, I know. “Say, what?”
Trust me, this is not a position I’ve come up with overnight, but a conclusion it’s taken nearly 60 years to come to, if you include the 14 years total (K-12 and some college) in that same government-driven education process. This is also decidedly not a rebellion against the concept of education per se. It is rather a reaction to what is being taught, and the results of those teachings and ultimately, of governmental control of the process.
My primary reasoning is that no reasonable person can expect a government-run, taxpayer-funded education system to teach the young minds full of mush the founders’ vision of limited government, because a government-run educational system is the antithesis of limited government. Then, too, no tyrant is ever going to teach you what you need to know to be free of them.
Sarah Hoyt pretty much nailed this one, a couple years ago:
However, tell me, not-so-gentle reader, what the heck business is this of the feds? Or even your very own state bureaucrats? I’m willing to concede it might — might, perhaps — be of interest to your city, local business associations or churches. In which case those entities are perfectly free to start schools to make sure future citizens or employees, or even believers, know how to use the oxford comma, tie their shoes, and speak in full, coherent sentences, or even solve quadratic equations, if that is what is required.
But why is it the province of the state?
Oh, I know what the excuse/reason was at the turn of the 20th century. Then as now, the US was trying to digest a massive bolo of immigrants who didn’t know how things were done here. And let’s be honest, teaching them to be “good Americans” was better than now, when we teach them to hate the country they just immigrated to.
On the other hand… On the other hand a lot of that “good Americans” thing taught them to be members of FDR’s vision for the US. And…. And led to everything else that’s come along.
So why not remove all educational requirements, take the public schools and raze them, possibly salting the land afterwards, just so people get the point that no, this is not good and should not be done again.
Oh, you work and can’t be at home to look after the kids? Well, then. The money the government takes from your paycheck to pay for education should be refunded with all possible alacrity, and you can probably find someone to teach your kids what you want them to be taught, or just to let them free-range while you’re at work. Look, if you really insist, we can find you a multi-tattooed, pink-haired monstrosity to convince your kids that they’re really trans-dragons and you get the entire public school experience.
As I remarked in another column recently, the primary and just purpose of government should be to support, reinforce, and, if possible, extend the influence of the culture that gave it life. At a minimum, the laws that a government enforces should not run afoul of that culture. At the very least, whatever educational system is in place should also fall in line with those ideals. You would certainly think to see those principles applied to a government-run system, no?
Increasingly, however, that’s NOT been happening. Instead, we are being offered an education system that promotes left-wing ideas and ideals. I point once again to Tim Kane dismissing the concept of the founders that our rights come not from government but from God:
There you go; Kane is not misrepresenting the underlying philosophy of the left, which still controls our educational systems: Government is the ultimate power; there is no higher power that those in government have to answer to; and there is no such thing as natural rights. The truth is that, as Sarah alludes to, the counter-culture radicals of the 1960s college scene are now “educating” our kids and passing these values on.
To make matters worse, they have the power of government backing them. With that government enforcement, parents have no choice but to submit their children to this systemic deconstruction of America and its culture. Even private schools don’t help much, so deep into the flesh of such private schools are the teeth of the government. (Catholic Schools, you WILL teach that abortion is a net positive, or we remove your funding.)
The one flaw in Sarah’s argument I see is that, in allowing local school boards (obviously part of government) a foothold, we restrict and increasingly remove parental ability to direct and, indeed, even to influence the education of their own children. Jefferson observed that the natural state of government is growth. So with that foothold, we’ll be right back in the proverbial soup in a few generations. Do we really want every part of the educational process to be decided by governmental fiat, and the deleterious effects that has on the country?
Increasingly, we see the government telling us that our children no longer are our responsibility or under our control, as regards education. Worse, we increasingly see schools stepping in to tell us we should not interfere with, for example, the prepubescent “choice” of a sex change operation, or later on, an abortion. This is tantamount to the proverbial seven-year-old wanting to be a pirate, and the school system hiding from the parents their plan to let the child chop off one leg and pluck one eye because ”we must respect his choices.” This is, of course, the “It Takes a Village” approach, famed in song, story, and DNC talking points.
Proponents of government domination of education try to defend themselves by saying that our kids are now better educated than they ever have been. Uh huh. Right. (Dry chuckle).
Even the quickest examination makes this out as the lie it has always been. Chinese kids, for example, are learning advanced calculus before they reach their teen years. Here in America, meanwhile, our kids are learning what, precisely?
Well, that’s hard to say, since in large part they can’t even read their own diplomas that they were just handed on the graduation stage. Then again, on the bright side, they are fully versed in gender pronouns and how to think like a drag queen, how evil white people are (particularly white males), and that America alone is an illegitimate country, solely responsible for what they call the climate change crisis. Kids are taught that they can’t make it by in life without handouts from the government and the government making all their choices for them.
Our government-run “education” system amounts to a government-run advertising campaign, really, pitching anti-Americanism. After a few generations of this, we are now at a point in our history where the principles of individual freedom and limited government that I mentioned above are no longer accepted as fundamentals, and certainly no longer taught as such in government schools. We spend all of our time arguing about it, with an ever-increasing probability of losing that fight.
Related: It’s Time for Cultural Assimilation, but It’s Also Time to Represent Our Culture Better
Then, add the financial cost to this mix. We now have a government monopoly on education. Remember that when monopolies happen, costs go up with the lack of competition. That fundamental is well proven as we are now spending more on a per-student basis than any other country in the world, with increasingly dismal results. Yet we’re told we should be spending even more.
And don’t even get me started on the teachers’ unions themselves, which are evermore associated with the Democrats because that’s what feeds their paychecks.
Such is the educational state of affairs today.
Let’s reiterate: This is not an argument against education, but for it. The worst mistake we ever made as a country, a culture, and a people was to turn the education of our young over to the government. It is far too important an issue to leave in the hands of the government. The results of that mistake have been nothing short of a disaster. There is a disparity between what our education system was supposed to be and what, under governmental control, it has become. That disparity is not going to end well for America and its people.
Let’s be generous and assume, for the sake of discussion, that the destruction of our future generations is not the intended result of the efforts we see; that there is a disparity between intent and actual impact. Now, turn this on its head: If an enemy truly intended to destroy the United States, how would it be acting differently on these matters than what we see today?
The first step, of course, to remedying the situation is already underway — ending the U.S. Department of Education. (Thank you, President Trump!) I view the destruction of that monster with great joy, because in reality, that institution had evolved into a handout to teachers’ unions, which reinforces all the negatives I listed above while lowering the ability of graduates to obtain meaningful work. The liberal arts factory isn’t hiring as many workers these days, ya see.
The ball is now rolling in the direction of less government control of everything, education being one such. We need to finish the job. Our freedoms and, in turn, our future and our future generations depend on completing that task.
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