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issuesEDUCATION
Public, Private, Home-school? That is the Question
Keep in mind the libertarian assumption that government messes up anything it touches by one or more of the following: inefficiency, incompetence, or corruption. Yes there are some very good public school districts in terms of the product they produce. But even they could do what they could do much more efficiently if they were subject to market conditions. Market conditions, competition, free enterprise are what keep prices down and quality up.
Also keep in mind that libertarians oppose force. Yet in this democracy, all property owners are forced to fund the public schools where they own property, whether or not they have children or they choose to send their children to the local public school. Should they choose to decline paying the big tax bill, eventually people with guns would come and take their property from them. If this were done by a private company, we would call it stealing, or even organized crime. Because it is done by the government, we accept it as lawful and just.
The root of the problem is the force issue. Because children are forced by the government to attend school, and because property owners are forced to fund public schools, the problem of under-performing schools becomes a political problem. Much time is spent in elections from the Presidency on down, debating what has caused our current "education problem" and what would fix it. Though some candidates discuss vouchers or charter schools, no one dares say the government should get out of the education business all together, but that is the simple solution, if you allow yourself to think outside of the box.
If we are no longer compelled to pay for schools that don't perform well, or send our children to these schools, it is a non-issue. In that situation, parents would look for the best schools for their children. Schools that do not perform well would either improve or be out of business. The cost of quality of any particular school would not be a matter of national policy, but a matter of interest only to the students, parents, faculty and administration of a given school.
If there were no school tax or no sales tax, parents would have additional money in their pockets to pay for their children's education. Obviously financial aid and scholarships would also be more plentiful because many private citizens who have already educated their children, who have no children, or who are wealthy and concerned about their neighbors' children, would give generously to fund education for the less fortunate. Churches, which already provide affordable education to their parishioners families, would be able to do even more because, again, their members would not be subsidizing public education while also subsidizing parochial education.
With government regulation and mandates out of the way, each school would be free to be creataive with programming, format, and approach, in order to serve a particular population as a speciality school, or to serve their own unique student body as best defined by the school community. Parents who wished to home school their children could do so, again, without having to subsidize public education while also paying for private testing and acreditation.
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