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by Brian MosThe U.S. public schools today suffer many problems. We ranked 28th out of 41 countries in an international study of 8th graders in math. The news is constantly talking about violent incidents on school grounds. There was recently a school related stabbing death in the local news. Drugs are being sold on our campuses. Literacy is down. Delinquency is up. Government schools are not working. We have tried attempts at reform and have only gotten a more expensive, more inefficient, more brainwashing and more intrusive school system. It costs $6000 per year for the government to educate one student. Were this same student to pay for a private education, the student would receive a better education for about half the price, around $3000. How, you ask, does the government waste 50% of their funds? Layers and layers of bureaucracy exist in the government. First we have the Department of Education (DOE). The DOE sucks up billions of dollars and educates no-one. They do not offer solutions to problems, or even warn us about them in advance. After the release of the aforementioned math-ranking study, Education Secretary Richard Riley simply said, "We need to take a good, hard look at what we teach." The Florida State Legislature has repeatedly made dumb laws concerning education, such as Life Management or Physical Education or any other class you neither want nor need. The Brevard School Board has wasted huge amounts of money on luxuries like their Emerald City School Board in Viera. On top of all of this, the schools do not have to excel. Florida state law guarantees them the business of everyone in their district. It is a crime not to attend a school. This is one of the biggest monopolies in history. A person can make a case for the privatization of schools. While this may seem radical to you, it is actually a return to a proven method. Before we had public schools we did not have an ignorant, illiterate, non-functional population. Professional teacher groups conceived public schools to protect their jobs and to homogenize the population into unquestioning, patriotic, obedient citizens. Literacy was not their concern. In fact, public schools have destroyed the intellect of the population. The incorrect principle that minors are property of the state formed the foundation for the public school system. Private schools would have to compete with each other to survive. Private schools could not forces a student to attend a school because of the location of his house. You would be able to choose a school as you would choose a restaurant. You could choose one with prayer or one without prayer. You could decide if you want sex education. You could attend a school that is strong in the area in which you want to pursue a career. Disruptive students would be kicked out of school before they can ruin your classes. Good teachers will enjoy high salaries since their skills will be valuable to anyone in the education industry. Private education could be paid for with tax refunds. For every student whom you put through school, you could get $3000 off you final tax amount. This way it will cost you nothing to send a student to a private school. You would be losing the money to taxes anyway. This would be open to anyone who wants to pay for someone's education. Wealthy individuals can create many scholarships, at no cost because of the tax break, to pay for the education of students who otherwise would not receive a private education. The government would not lose any money from this. For each $3000 that the government loses in taxes, it saves the $6000 that it would have been using to pay for a public education. |
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This page was last updated 07/02/00 01:50 PM |