No one’s left to defend educational freedom, except for a motley group of independent, unfunded homeschoolers teaching their kids at home. Given that they broke free of centralized control and approvals of their home programs, many have a healthy mistrust of state control over education.
Most folks never read, or understood, history. They simply trust centralized control of education despite the mountain of evidence stacked up against it. Folks went from having thousands of decentralized independent school houses where they could work within their district, or change their affiliation and tax support of a public school if they found it objectionable . . . to being trapped without recourse in a district, or an even more centralized “school administrative unit” of multiple districts. We went from having educational freedom that our founders had fought for . . . to being a cash cow forced to fund expensive, failing school districts that are indifferent to our concerns.
However, many folks never understood the real source of their public school woes. Some blamed the teacher unions, which were actually created by state legislature. Alternatively, they blamed school districts for high costs and rising property taxes, not understanding the root cause was also the state legislature, which accepted federal grants that required them to impose uniform state standards, inequitable competency grading, data tracking, SEL behavior modification, and even MTSS-B mental health evaluations of children. All of these are expensive and require a slew of costly administrators to implement.
Teachers and districts didn’t create any of these toxic and invasive programs. They were simply mandated to implement these programs, because the state accepted federal bribes. Public school teachers and administrators indeed self-select for their willingness to comply with these mandates; not everyone could. But keep in mind that the state also bribed teachers and administrators by creating a mandatory state pension program. These too must be funded, in large part, locally.
Not understanding all of this and being disgusted with public education, a lot of folks sold out this year for a new “universal” state entitlement. They think they have finally captured “freedom” by getting a wallet full of taxpayer funds to pay for private education, but in reality they have simply expanded state funding and control over education to include private education. Folks are now being forced to fund both state controlled public education and these new “freedom” handouts for private education.
Over time state funding of private education will lead to state control of private education, destroying the value of the whole exercise. Invariably, whatever the state funds, it regulates.
So, this is the long and sordid tale of “universal education freedom accounts” trampling education freedom and expanding taxes. Where have all the liberty groups gone? Long time passing. When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?
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