Maryland Governor Larry Hogan recently signed an executive order forbidding Maryland public schools from beginning classes before Labor Day. Governor Hogan’s executive order benefits businesses in Maryland’s coastal areas that lose school-aged summer employees and business from Maryland families when schools start in August. However, as Governor Hogan’s critics have pointed out, some Maryland school districts, as well as Maryland schoolchildren, benefit from an earlier start to the school year.
Governor Hogan’s executive order is the latest example of how centralized government control of education leaves many students behind. A centrally planned education system can no more meet the unique needs of every child than a centrally planned economic system can meet the unique needs of every worker and consumer.
The centralization and politicization of education is rooted in the idea that education is a right that must be provided by the government, instead of a good that individuals should obtain in the market. Separating school from state would empower parents to find an education system that meets the needs of their children instead of using the political process to force their idea of a good education on all children.
While many politicians praise local and parental control of education, the fact is both major parties embrace federal control of education. The two sides only differ on the details. Liberals who oppose the testing mandates of No Child Left Behind enthusiastically backed President Clinton’s national testing proposals. They also back the Obama administration’s expansion of federal interference in the classroom via Common Core.
Similarly, conservatives who (correctly) not just opposed Clinton’s initiatives but called for the abolition of the Department of Education enthusiastically supported No Child Left Behind. Even most conservatives who oppose Common Core, federal bathroom and cafeteria mandates, and other federal education policies, support reforming, instead of eliminating, the Department of Education.
Politicians will not voluntarily relinquish control over education to parents. Therefore, parents and other concerned citizens should take a page from the UK and work to “Ed-Exit” government-controlled education. Parents and other concerned citizens should pressure Congress to finally shut down the Department of Education and return the money to American families. They also must pressure state governments and local school boards to reject federal mandates, even if it means forgoing federal funding.
Parents should also explore education alternatives, such as private, charter, and religious schools, as well as homeschooling. Homeschooling is the ultimate form of Ed-Exit. Homeschooling parents have the freedom to shape every aspect of education — from the curriculum to the length of the school day to what their children have for lunch to who can and cannot use the bathroom — to fit their child’s unique needs.
Parents interested in providing their children with a quality education emphasizing the ideas of liberty should try out my homeschooling curriculum. The curriculum provides students with a well-rounded education that includes courses in personal finance and public speaking. The government and history sections of the curriculum emphasize Austrian economics, libertarian political theory, and the history of liberty. However, unlike government schools, my curriculum never puts ideological indoctrination ahead of education.
Parents interested in Ed-Exiting from government-run schools can learn more about my curriculum at ronpaulcurriculum.com.
Before dismantling it, the Department of Education needs to be reconquered by Americans, and used to destroy the Marxist indoctrination system the Left has built with it.
Every teacher and administrator needs to be looked at – and most of them need to be fired, and blacklisted. Education is filled with people that have absolutely no business having contact with children. People with dual-citizenship, for instance, should never be allowed to work in education.
We had children later in life (33 yrs old). That’s because we believed you should raise your own children – not warehouse them in some daycare where you pay a minimum wage worker to raise / influence your child. Neither did they watch the fucking ‘Barney’ or Sesame Street.
We (my wife primarily) home schooled our children. The Minneapolis government schools are a complete brainwash. Little white girls are given black baby dolls (no shit). They got decent scores on the ACT and attended the college of their choice.
The government should get out of education. We need vouchers, so the parents can decide. This includes paying home schooler’s, who’s children meet or exceed standardized test requirements.
Vouchers or reduce property taxes…if you aren’t using it? Why should
you have to pay? Retirees = payment for schools = optional. Maybe
they are rich and want to pay? lol
“The centralization and politicization of education is rooted in the idea that education is a right that must be provided by the government, instead of a good that individuals should obtain in the market. Separating school from state would empower parents to find an education system that meets the needs of their children instead of using the political process to force their idea of a good education on all children.”
Suzanna
Here is food for thought, especially for those who support “public education” and rally about the doctrine of “socialization” that they claim is lacking in “homeschooled” children.
Let’s look at what “public education” has to offer:
1. Cliques and rampant bullying, quite often the victim of bullying punished more harshly for fighting back. Many times, bullies are part of a “protected” class–racial minorities, jocks, etc. Strong official disapproval of students making friends outside their grade level. “Peer pressure” used to push conformity.
2. Teachers that don’t teach reading writing and arithmetic. Pushing communist principles such as rabid environmentalism, blaming humanity for conditions beyond our control as well as pushing “communitarianism” (“it takes a village”)–actually communism. This also ties in with teacher-recommended feminizing and drugging (mostly boys) to make them “less fidgety” and more compliant–all for the “benefit” of the teacher.
3. Non-existent moral guidance…the communist concept of “values clarification”, allowing each student to set his own moral standard with no discussion permitted as to guidelines. A student dare not mention God or the Bible in “public school”–not permitted…discussing Islam is OK…even field trips to mosques are encouraged.
4. Sex education that normalizes homosexuality and other deviant practices, actually encouraging deviant behavior and downplaying heterosexuality and abstinence.
5. Insane zero tolerance practices, punishing students for pop-tarts shaped like guns or a student having an “unauthorized aspirin” or plastic butter knife. Of course, abortions and birth control are available without parental notification.
6. Lockdowns and backpack/locker searches by police utilizing “drug dogs”, getting the upcoming generation used to random unconstitutional searches. Quite often, students “roughed up” by “school resource officers”…just because they can…Lockdowns should be reserved for prisons–not schools…
Since these “socialization” practices seem to be the norm in our “public education” systems, parents who send their children to these dysfunctional “indoctrination centers” are guilty of child abuse…
Children who are homeschooled actually do much better in life as they are comfortable with people of all ages. True socialization takes place outside the classroom.
Government Schools = prison. Physical and mental.
We saw #1, #5 & #6 before we took our kids home and never looked back. One has graduated college, the other 4/5 through. If you can find a path, take your kids out of public schools until they decide to restore literacy, numeracy and ethics to the curriculum (probably not until the Crunch eliminates Fed control of schools and returns them to local control).
The Black boys got a kick out of masturbating in class, evading the teacher.
The girls were looking for fights. I saw a guy stab another guy in the upper
arm with a pencil… (first day of HS)…no words were exchanged. Both males
were White. By the time I graduated? The dress code was gone. The girls
wore lingerie to school. That was a long time ago…yikes, what must it be like now?
PS: We paid 50% more for our house than we should have to live in a good school
district. Parents were welcome to come to the classes and “help-out.”
The children could walk the 3 blocks to the school…it wasn’t bad. Nearly 100%
of the Moms were at home, and kids came home for lunch.
Here in AA County, Maryland the schools get 28 full days off during the year, plus 12 half days. Reducing some of those 28 days off by pushing school start date back to the traditional after Labor day start makes a parent’s life much less chaotic. eg. No sudden need for 1/2 million moms to take off on President’s day, Yom Kippur, or a whole week after Christmas.
On the one hand, I’d like to be in favor of anything RP says, on the other the governor is doing what the voters actually want him to do which is put things back to being more fun and less intrusive. If it were only about the beach we’d start school in early October and run ’em until 4th July when the ocean warms up.