You Want Them to Run the Healthcare?
Tuesday, 12 June 2007 by Jacob TomawIn his latest, Jonah Goldberg asks, “Why have public schools at all?” He answers with the boilerplate responses but points out
The problem with all these bromides is that they leave out the simple fact that one of the surest ways to leave a kid “behind” is to hand him over to the government. Americans want universal education, just as they want universally safe food. But nobody believes that the government should run nearly all of the restaurants, farms and supermarkets. Why should it run the vast majority of the schools - particularly when it gets terrible results?
OK, so schools are not good at actually educating children, but they are still good at teaching culture and general government brain washing right?
As for schools teaching kids about the common culture and all that, as a conservative I couldn’t agree more. But is there evidence that public schools are better at it? The results of the 2006 National Assessment of Educational Progress history and civics exams showed that two-thirds of U.S. high school seniors couldn’t identify the significance of a photo of a theater with a sign reading “Colored Entrance.” And keep in mind, political correctness pretty much guarantees that Jim Crow and the civil rights movement are included in syllabi. Imagine how few kids can intelligently discuss Manifest Destiny or free silver.
Oh, crap! It is not all bad right. Maybe the good out weights the bad.
What about the good public schools? Well, the reason good public schools are good has nothing to do with government’s special expertise and everything to do with the fact that parents care enough to ensure their kids get a good education. That wouldn’t change if the government got out of the school business. What would change is that fewer kids would get left behind.
Read it, weep, and start working to privatize your local schools.
Posted in Freemarket, politics
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