Comments on: School Choice Is the New Civil Rights Struggle http://www.showmedaily.org/2009/05/the-new-civil-rights-struggle.html Advancing liberty with responsibility by promoting market solutions for Missouri public policy Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:56:48 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Joe Nonnenkamp http://www.showmedaily.org/2009/05/the-new-civil-rights-struggle.html/comment-page-1#comment-2737 Joe Nonnenkamp Mon, 01 Jun 2009 15:44:59 +0000 http://www.showmedaily.org/?p=5034#comment-2737 I think we can all agree that school choice is important. But the problem with government assisted vouchers and other "choice" mechanisms is that is is merely a government scheme to ruin the private schools. As soon as schools take government money, they have to play by the state's rules. Right now, it's extremely difficult to tell public universities from private ones because even private schools have been flooded by government money via FAFSA and the GI Bill. The real solution is to get government out of education completely. That would create a much better system of choice, for all social classes. Competition and incentives could help keep it affordable, just like in all private sector markets. The United States didn't even have public schools until the late 1800s, and the reason they were established is because the Neo-Puritan and WASP elites were afraid that the parochial schools would Catholicize the country. And back then, public schools were not secular, they were Puritanical in nature, where kids were taught that the Pope was the antichrist, etc. The best thing any government can do for itself is to make its citizens stupid. It's doing a fine job with the public schools. I think we can all agree that school choice is important. But the problem with government assisted vouchers and other “choice” mechanisms is that is is merely a government scheme to ruin the private schools. As soon as schools take government money, they have to play by the state’s rules. Right now, it’s extremely difficult to tell public universities from private ones because even private schools have been flooded by government money via FAFSA and the GI Bill.

The real solution is to get government out of education completely. That would create a much better system of choice, for all social classes. Competition and incentives could help keep it affordable, just like in all private sector markets.

The United States didn’t even have public schools until the late 1800s, and the reason they were established is because the Neo-Puritan and WASP elites were afraid that the parochial schools would Catholicize the country. And back then, public schools were not secular, they were Puritanical in nature, where kids were taught that the Pope was the antichrist, etc.

The best thing any government can do for itself is to make its citizens stupid. It’s doing a fine job with the public schools.

]]>