EXODUS MANDATE-WV

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TOUGH LOVE

(The above is not the original title of the complete article. The author advocates private schools whereas Exodus Mandate advocates homeschooling and truly Christian schools. However, the author makes some points that I call “tough love.” Karl Priest)

(snips)

Government’s de facto monopoly over primary and secondary education is our single biggest problem, a problem that is genetically linked to all our other political problems.

The government school monopoly strengthens the state and harms the cause of liberty in many ways. On the state and local levels, education accounts for an enormous percentage of expenditures. It is absurd to suggest, as most Republican candidates do, that they will cut the size of state government but not touch the school system.

Government schools cannot survive without parents choosing to send their children to them. There is a constitutional right to choose a private school.

How do we do this? By explaining to parents that private schools are good for their children and government schools are bad for their children. It’s that simple. If we can convince just a few percent of families to switch over to private schools, momentum can be generated and a snowball effect can result. With more students, private school tuitions can decline because of economies of scale. With fewer government school students, governments can be embarrassed into cutting their budgets. Thankfully, some funding formulas are based on the number of students. That will, we hope, lower taxes and put more discretionary income into the hands of parents which will in turn encourage ever further defections from the government schools. Lower taxes and better education will also stimulate economic growth and provide ever-greater discretionary income to keep the drive away from government schools alive.

I sometimes chide my friends who send their precious offspring to government schools, "How can you send your children to a school whose teachers can’t be fired unless they commit a serious felony?"

We can likewise ask:

1. How can you send your children to schools with a propensity towards violence?
2. How can you send your children to schools where drug use is rampant?
3. Where sex, drugs and rock and roll is the predominant cultural value?
4. Where test scores are low?
5. Where the dropout rate is high?
6. Where there’s a dumbing down of standards to accommodate the students who don’t want to be there?
7. Where your children will sit next to students who are there because their parents want a free babysitting service?
8. Where any positive mention of your religion is illegal?
9. Where teachers are frequently physically assaulted by students and students are sexually abused by teachers?

I am sure to be accused of foisting a guilt trip on parents. I plead guilty to that charge. That’s exactly what I’m doing.

So I say abandon hope all ye who seek to move our bought and paid for state legislators to abolish the educational monopoly they created.

Schedule an "intervention" with your friends and family who send their children into the lion’s den. Exercise some tough love today. They’ll thank you for it ten years from now.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/ostrowski/ostrowski82.html

Also see: and Why Christian Education Is Important.