SCHOOLS
Lets talk about schools -- the different types of schools. There is what should properly be called private schools. These are schools that are not open to the public but are run by people who wish to teach and who carefully select the pupils and pay the cost. Home schools for children would fall in this category, but so would a school run by a business for the purpose of teaching their employees or future employees what they want them to know. These types of schools tend to be successful in accomplishing their goal, and all such activities are voluntary. They are schools not open to the general public.
Then there are the public schools which are either operated for profit or for an altruistic purpose and are open to the general public. Prior to the early 1900's these were the predominant schools for teaching children. Usually they were paid for by the parents who wanted their children to obtain a functioning education and often they were funded by philanthropist. These also were entirely voluntary and they were quite successful. At the time of the American Revolution, a very high percentage of the population were literate; a higher percent than we have today in America. Public schools are marked by the same quality that marks all really public institutions. What makes it public is that it is available to the public, and support for its operation cannot be compelled, nor can failure to attend be punished. Public means "belonging to the people." It anything belongs to a person he can do with it, legally, what he will. We shop in public grocery stores and clothing stores. We may come or we may go and we may support the stores or we may not. They cease to be public when they are paid for by taxation and use is compelled by law. As you can see our language has changed or been confused. Most of us think of public places as something that is controlled by government, but really we should always refer to such places as government places.
The third type are government schools. How do we identify government schools? These are schools that are paid for out of taxation and usually where attendance is obtained through coercion. Over 95 percent of our daily activities are through the use of public institutions and maybe 5% is government institution. This is pretty much true with the exception of education. Over 95% of schools in this country are government schools and the remaining 5% are public or private schools. Question: How successful are government schools? The answer to this question depends upon how you measure success.
THE SUCCESS OF GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS
There are many today who believe that the Government School System is a failure. They point to the low test scores and the students who are graduating without the ability to read, write or do simple business math. They may also observe with concern the number of teachers and government officials who send their own children to privately run schools, which I call free market schools to avoid confusion. Actually the government schools system has been a great success. It has been one of the most successful socialistic experiments in history. What most critics of our government school system don't understand is that, from it's very inception, the primary purpose of government schooling has never been to educate children in the basic skills of reading, writing and arithmetic. It's main goal has been to mold the minds of future generations during their formative years to accept socialism and the managed economy. It was to convince the people coming up to adulthood that government was the proper tool for solving the problems of mankind.
America had relied predominantly on public and private schools for the 1st several hundred years, up to about 125 years after the founding of the United States. These schools were successful at educating children and they also taught that government was not to be trusted. They taught self-reliance and the principles of the free market and we had the most educated people in the world. Parents were responsible for their children's education and saw to it that they got it. Good teachers were in demand but they were required to teach what the parents, who were paying the bill, demanded.
In the late 19th century, socialism came into vogue and those promoting it were the leaders responsible for converting the public/private schools into government schools. The government contributed funds to help pay for the schools and teachers salaries in the then free market schools, from tax revenue and when they did so, others who had been paying stopped. The government soon became the sole contributor and had total control. The government made it mandatory for parents to send their children to the now government controlled schools, but they still called them public schools. From then on they, not the parents, establish what, how and where the children were to be taught. It has been immensely successful in its goal of converting America from a free market economy to that of an acceptance of a managed socialist type market system. Lets give credit where credit is due. Those who wanted to transform our society were very successful in transforming the children in this country so that as adults they would accept socialism.
Socialism has proved to be a failed system all around the world, but the education system has been successful from the standpoint of the socialist who wanted to reshape America into a Socialist country. If we don't like the results we are seeing, we must abandon the government school system and return the responsibility of teaching children back to their parents. To wash socialism from our country we must wash the ideas that it is a superior economic system and the first step is to abandon, not reform the present governmental school system that is still tying to further convert our country.
HOW CAN WE ABANDON THE GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS?
To answer that question you have to look at the countries once called the USSR and the mess they are in as they attempt to transform their failed totally managed economic system to that of a free market system. I suspect it will take at least two generations for them to get out of the mess they are in and a 100 years for the country to recover from the effects of their 75 year experiment. The longer it takes to abandon socialism the greater the problems created by it and the more difficult it will be to recover. It is inevitable that it will fail because every attempt at socialism fails. Why should we assume that a socialist school system is going to be an exception? The longer we delay in abandoning it, the more damage it will do. Note that I am saying abandon, not reform it.
HOW ABOUT VOUCHERS?
Today nearly everybody recognizes the problems of our present educational system and its dismal results, and they are looking for ways to solve the problem so that children today will reach adulthood with the ability to read, write and function in the technological world which they will find themselves in. It has been found that pouring more money into the system has not helped, but seemingly made it worse. Many minds have been active in trying to find ways to reform it, but the buzz word today is vouchers. Vouchers are being advocated by many liberals and conservative alike. They have looked at the free market schools, and see results that far exceed that of the government schools and at considerably less cost. They rightfully assume that the answer of better education is in the free market schools but wrongfully believe that the answer lies in providing the parents with government money so they can send their children to those free market schools. Those advocating this change either do not know or have forgotten that with government money comes government controls. Like all experiments in socialism, the present socialistic educational system will ultimately destroy itself. It is just a matter of time, and any attempt to prolong its life will just add to the on-going dumbing down of Americans. The longer the wait for the destruction to come the greater the problems of rebuilding it. Vouchers would help sustain the present socialist system of education for a time, but we must ask ourselves "At what cost?"
There is no doubt in my mind that vouchers would temporarily improve government schools because of two important factors: (1) the competition that would be generated as a large number of students and their parents take advantage of the voucher system, and (2) the ability of a socialist system to copycat the successes inherent with the free market. The ability to steal ideas from the West enabled the USSR to last far longer then they would have had they not been able to steal the technologies of the West. This allowed the defunct system to survive an extra 25 years or so and ultimately made matters worse for the people in those former communist countries.
The current problems of the socialist educational system in America would begin to infect the private schools soon after they begin taking government money in the form of vouchers. Count on it. When private schools take money from the government, they will become government schools. That is how the government came to be in the business of education here in America in the first place. It was by putting money in them, and when the government begins to put money in something the free market quits. History has shown that always, with government money comes government controls. The controls are often rather benign in the beginning, but slowly become total in time, and ultimately the private schools would be practically unrecognized from the present day socialist school system. Vouchers would prolong the life of the present system but will not be able to save it. The real victims of a voucher system would be the private schools and the future generations of Americans. The private schools will be destroyed and will have to be re-built from the ashes of a defunct system and the transitional period will be a tragedy.
As history have amply proved prior to the socialization of public schools, education is more effective when the parents are paying for it. Today much of the success of private schools is that parents are paying for it and as a result they make sure that they are getting their money's worth. They demand good results from the people whom they are paying and if they do not produce the expected results, then you take the children to another school. The incentive for the free market schools to excel is much like the incentive for other business. Those in the free market must produce good results and excel so as to keep their customers, the children and the parents, and attract those that observe the superior results. The socialist schools have no such incentives and parents have no control of withholding their taxes when the schools are not doing a good job.
HOW CAN WE MAKE THE TRANSITION TO FREE MARKET SCHOOLS WITH THE LEAST HARM TO THE CHILDREN AND SOCIETY?
Having great faith in my fallibility, I make the following suggestions: But with great faith in the free market system I have no doubt that if we allow the market to work, it will provide superior education the same as those in the free market provide our groceries, clothing and all the things that make life better for all.
ONE SOLUTION
The present school and school administration buildings should be put up for sale by public auction. All teachers and school administrators should be terminated. All taxing now done for the purpose of funding education should be immediately stopped. School teachers and administrators should be allowed to take whatever pensions they have accumulated in the teachers retirement system and should receive them free of taxes of any kind. This would be the abandonment I am suggesting. Question:
Does anyone believe that education would stop?
Does anyone believe that teacher will no long wish to teach?
Does anyone believe that teachers would not like to have their own business?
I suggest that the teachers and administrators who would be out of a job, but with a pool of money from their retirement fund might be the ideal bidder for the school building being sold at auction and they would be the main source of teachers for the new free market schools that would fill the gap caused by the abandonment of the old government schools. Former taxpayers might also be interested in buying into the new free market system by investing the money they were formerly paying in school taxes for shares in a new and potentially good investment. They might also wish to contribute into private trust funds formed for the purpose of helping to pay for the education of children whose parents are hard pressed to meet tuition cost. Then too, it might be that more parents would emulate the successful home teaching being done today in order to keep their children out of the influence of government mind control.
There well may be some difficulties in making the transition, I am sure there will be. I am equally sure that they will be overcome in a very short time because the free market has a tendency to resolve problems, and the resolutions will be a blessing to the parents, the children and the communities of America.
I welcome criticism and other ideas for letting the market prevail.
C. W. (Jinx) Steinbrecher
Presented to the Libertarian Party of Bexar County monthly meeting
by C. W. Steinbrecher, on March 21, 2000
C. W. Steinbrecher is a Candidate for the U.S. Congress
21st District of Texas