The "Educracy" and HR 1162

The truth about the public funding of schools through taxes and HR 1162 is undeniable – education should be exempt from the authority of the state and absolutely divorced from the legislative body of the state. 

Education is a duty that we owe to our children and the manner in which we discharge it, can only be directed by reason not by forced taxation, mandates, or legislative action. No parents right to educate their children as they deem wise should be hindered by any institution of government through taxation, rules, and government force.

In his essay, The Problem with Public Education, Laurence M. Vance (February 9, 2012) wrote;

“The biggest problem with education at all levels, but one that can easily and quickly be solved, is the elimination of federal regulation, control, and funding of public education.”

“... at the state and local level there should be no mandatory-attendance laws; property taxes to pay for public schools; regulation, monitoring, or control of private or home schools; and no public-school teachers — all for the simple reason that there should be no public schools.”

If states are to have public schools they should be optional and be like the post office competing with the private sector. You pick and choose which service you pay for.

Is it fair for people with no children to pay to educate other people's children? Why should they pay to educate their neighbor’s children while funding a private school for their children? More importantly parents are responsible for their children's medical care, clothing, food and drink, housing, religious training, transportation, recreation, and health – why not education.

The Economics of Education

“If the Law of Unintended Consequences ever applied, it is in federal student financial assistance. Programs created with the noblest of intentions have failed to serve either their customers or the nation well.”

                        – Richard Vedder, Professor of Economics Ohio University

Taxation is theft and property taxes are tyranny. The government will seize your home and sell it, even if you have no mortgage, to gobble up your wealth in the form of property taxes. The public-school bureaucracy is insatiable and it will not stop until the entire system is eliminated.

Public school restricts educational freedom in many ways. Actually public schools set price controls on learning, because families only have so much money to fund the system. The public-school system is always seeking more-and-more money at the taxpayers expense and taxpayers tire of paying into that system. The schools react by restricting curriculum, class sizes, and teacher opportunities. Many parents can't afford to send their children to a private school to exercise their educational freedom, because the public school bureaucracy takes that money in the form of property taxes.

If public schools were eliminated and all education was put into the free market the educational opportunities, career opportunities for teachers, and parental choice would be limitless. You would have for-profit and non-profit schools, religious and secular schools, vocational and college-prep schools, there would also be schools that cater to a particular religion, political viewpoint, ethnic group, sex, socio-economic status, nationality, ethnic, level of intelligence, or worldview. Charities, business partnerships, and private voucher plans would certainly exist to help educate poor and special-needs children — just as they exist now under the present system.

With a free market for education, some schools would allow prayer; others would forbid it. Some schools would permit guns; others would outlaw even the representation of a gun. Some schools would teach creation; others would teach evolution. Some schools would have a liberal dress code; others would require uniforms. Some schools would offer sex education; others would have an abstinence program. Education freedom and the free markets would offer more opportunities for teachers and parents.

Public school also creates malinvestment. As the public school bureaucracy takes more-and-more of the taxpayers money via property tax and ESPLOST. The bureaucracy builds schools that otherwise would not have been built with such magnificence. These are more costly to maintain and in a free market that money would be directed to other more fruitful pursuits. Likewise as the public-school bureaucracy mandates curriculum the system produces teachers to fulfill those mandates. These teachers in a free market may have trained in a different field more in tune with the parents needs with higher earning potential.

A more diverse set of books would have been written on differing subjects. More intellectual thought would be put into a more diverse set of subjects allowing teachers and children to prosper while their parents direct their children’s education.

Public school mandates are no different than government subsidies. You can't predict the unintended consequences. If you bailout corn farmers by legislating ethanol in gasoline, you get more corn and less barley. You also drive up the price of corn and starve the poorest of your neighbors.  

Public school price controls on education is no different than Medicaid. You get less care as doctors drop from the system and ultimately lower quality.

It should never be forgotten that public education is nothing more than government education and the victims are the teachers, parents, and children.

For this reason I am voting NO for HR 1162. Education should be exempt from the authority of the state and absolutely divorced from the legislative body of the state.