Free Keene

Getting the government out of the business of schooling is important not only because it violates the non-aggression principal, but also because it is what is best for children. This begs the question ~ what steps should be taken to end the unholy marriage government has with education?

Like most libertarian ideas, the first step in privatizing education is to educate the public. Most people are already somewhat aware that private and home schools trump government schools every time, but when the suggestion is made to abolish public schools most people, especially those with children, balk. This is because most people have been raised thinking that government schools are very important. Many people have never even entertained the idea of switching back to a voluntary situation. This is why educating the public is so important.

Private schools already provide children with the best education, and with the void of public schools a flood of new competing schools would spring up. The new flood of schools would not only compete to raise education standards, but it would also bring education costs down while simultaneously setting up grants and scholarships for families who could not afford the tuition. In Keene, education costs are paid for primarily through local property taxes, meaning every family would save thousands of dollars every year, giving them enough money to save and put towards whichever school they choose to send their children to. Even renters, who don’t directly pay property taxes, would see a drastic cut in their rent bill as landlords would begin to pass the property tax savings onto their tenants.

Privatizing education would also give parents more choice in what their children are learning, and this is very important as study after study has proven that the most important aspect of a child’s education is not money, but parental involvement. Currently, concerned parents fight during school board meetings as to whether sex education, evolution, and other controversial topics should be taught in public schools. Private schools on the other hand would offer parents a broad range of choices, ranging from dress code to what subjects are taught. Christian parents could send their children to a Christian school where sex education is left up to the parents, and creationism is taught either instead of or in conjunction with evolution. Agnostic or atheist parents could choose to send their children to a secular school, where sex ed is not shyed away from, and evolution and science get special attention. The public school system does not allow parents to make these choices, as only one curriculum can be taught under the one size fits all system.

Finally, it should not be forgotten where the idea of government education came from. For the greater part of American history schools were run in a non-coercive voluntary manner. During the late 1800’s and early 1900’s the blueprint for public schools was created to maintain social order and create a working class to support the elite. Former President Woodrow Wilson codified this vision after the system was put in place, saying:

“We want one class to have a liberal education. We want another class, a very much larger class of necessity, to forego the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks.”

There are a myriad of quotes like this one, and if one is to look at what public schools have done to this country they would see the blueprint was effectively put into place, and is still in effect today. There is a reason that public schools are the final plank in the Communist Manifesto. When governments take the responsibility of education away from parents they are able to indoctrinate children with whatever propaganda and misinformation they want to. Since the government took control of education, the Constitution has been all but decimated, but the public schools still teach children that the government operates under the Constitution, after all ~ the government can do no wrong.

Once people understand the reasons for privatizing schools, steps must be taken to get children out of public schools and into either home schools or private schools. This, like educating the public, must start one person at a time until a saturation point is reached. Some people suggest that vouchers be used, but vouchers often have strings attached to them, and they still require coercive wealth redistribution. A better solution would be to start allowing parents who do not utilize public schools to keep that part of their property tax bill. Many parents would send their children to private schools, but because they already pay for public schools they choose the easy route that they have already paid for. Rewarding people for pulling their children out of public schools by allowing them to keep their own money will not only get the ball rolling in getting the government out of schools, but it will also begin to trickle down to all other tax payers. As fewer and fewer children attend public schools, the school tax portion on every tax bill will go down.

This is not a perfect solution, but it is a start, and all changes need a starting point. Currently most parents are addicted to government schools, and simply shutting down the schools would be detrimental to many families. The deconstruction of government schools must start slowly, and will probably require many incremental steps. This is a solution that Keene could begin to put into place immediately to start privatizing education, one student at a time.