Today the mass murder of 19 fourth graders and two teachers dominated the news. It is yet one more reminder that the public school model in the USA is ineffective, dangerous, expensive, and totally obsolete.

Want some more reminders?

• Congress sent more than $190 BILLION to schools for “Covid Relief” in two years. What happened to all that money? A lot of it went into football stadiums, Critical Race Theory programming, teacher pay and benefit increases, and a plethora of direct-payment corruption to political cronies. It sure was not spent on security, because liberals do not want their children defended with guns – that doesn’t fit the anti-gun narrative. Despite the huge spending, public schools closed anyway, causing an irreparable learning gap, psychological damage, and physical problems.
• The cost per student continues to escalate (see some startling figures here) while educational performance continues to decline.
• Public schools now emphasize aberrant sexual behavior, gender-bending, and extracurricular activities over fundamental studies that produce employable skills. They promote racism and fear, teaching vulnerable children that Martin Luther King was a liar – content of character doesn’t matter, only the color of one’s skin.
• Parents who attempt to influence school boards toward improvement, or even reasonableness, are physically removed from public meetings, and investigated by law officials as “public terrorists”.

I could go on, but you know the drill.

All of this points to the fact that the American public school model is obsolete. It just doesn’t work any more. Schools cost too much, produce too little, put kids at risk, and are destroying our nation and the very future of the kids we entrust to them.

So what’s the answer? Like most government programs that have become too big to be manageable or functional, our education system should be blown up and replaced. The notion that kids learn best stuck at a desk in a room of 25 students, dominated by one teacher (who may or may not have their best interests at heart) and waiting for resources and attention is crazy. We all know that children are eager to learn, and will do so as fast as they are allowed to. Kids need LESS rigid supervision and more independent creative time and resources.

I think we should look to the private sector for answers to fixing the broken public school model. The funding system is a critical roadblock. More parents would home school their children (a tremendously successful model) if they didn’t have to pay for their unused public education, too. And businesses who currently can’t get qualified employees would be better served to educate their own prospects rather than rely on a public system that has no idea what they need. In any event, if taxpayers (individual and business) must pay for education, they need more control over the process and results. Families need the right to choose where and how their children are educated, and any government funding to that end should stay with the student, not go straight to the school in his/her zip code.

It won’t be easy to wrestle our future away from the bureaucracy. But it’s way past time to do it.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side