I believe it was Seymour Papert who said that often the best way to think about something is to think about something else instead. Given how quickly and completely people’s brains tend to shut down when thinking about education,
https://granitegrok.com/new-england/nh/2025/06/feeling-instead-of-thinking-about-education
he may be especially right for that particular subject.
Let’s look at a couple of examples.
First, in a recent article about ‘Republican Socialism’, Reason quoted Frederick Hayek:
The effect of the people’s agreeing that there must be central planning, without agreeing on the ends, will be rather as if a group of people were to commit themselves to take a journey together without agreeing where they want to go; with the result that they may all have to make a journey which most of them do not want at all.
Have you ever come across a better description of what’s going on with public schools?
Question for conservatives: If you oppose socialism everywhere else, why wouldn’t you oppose it in schools as well?
Second, in a recent blog post, billionaire investor Mark Cuban said that he thinks health care should work like this:
Patients go to providers for care. Providers provide that care. Patients get a bill and if they can afford it, they pay that bill. That’s it.
The ONLY question in healthcare should be ‘How should care for people who can’t afford to pay for their care be paid?’
You might think this is nuts. But if you agree with him (as I do), then it’s worth noting that we could replace ‘patients’ with ‘parents’, and replace ‘care’ and ‘healthcare’ with ‘education’, and the logic is exactly the same:
Parents go to providers for education. Providers provide that education. Parents get a bill and if they can afford it, they pay that bill. That’s it.
The ONLY question in education should be ‘How should education for people who can’t afford to pay for their education be paid?’
Question for conservatives: What are your arguments against this approach? Especially given that it’s how we handle every other situation where all people need something that some people can’t afford?
I’ve been saying this stuff for a while:
https://granitegrok.com/blog/2019/01/educaid
https://granitegrok.com/new-england/nh/2025/02/transitioning-from-schools-to-education
So I’m happy to hear that other people are saying it too… even if they don’t realize it, because they think they’re talking about something else.
