EDUCATION

education-in-america

The department of education is a total failure. Talk to most teachers and they will agree. In the current system administrators are more focused on satisfying federal mandates, retaining funding and trying not to get sued, while teachers are jumping through hoops, trying to serve up a one size fits all education for their students. Their is a massive overreach of big goverment into the classroom. No nation can remain free when the state has greater influence over the knowledge and values transmitted to children than the family does. Anyone who cares about their child’s education will want to get the federal government out of the business of education children. In 1980, the Republicans platform was to get rid of the Dept of Education and by the year 2000 it was eliminated until “no child left behind” started and then it became a huge bureaucracy. The growth of this agency and its numerous regulations is a major reason for runaway costs in American schools. The cost of education has far outpaced the general cost of living over the last 30 years. The reason for this excessive rise in the cost of education is that many students no longer consider price when choosing higher education because they have access to unlimited borrowed funds. The idea that anyone who wants an education because it is a right and the cost should not be an impediment, directly results in a blank check that the higher education system uses to consistently raise their prices! The only way to solve these problems is through market economics. Once upon a time, a university would tout its tuition price as a value factor in its selection. Now we have a proliferation of marginal institutions of higher learning for marginal students charging exorbitant fees and legitimate institutions charging even more. It’s time we end this era of free educational money and let some common sense back into the financial decision-making.

Eisenhower warned us of the “military-industrial complex”, where entrenched interests sought funding from the federal government and convinced the people the benefits of wartime economies and collective defense, all the while pocketing huge sums of our money. Next, we had a “banking-housing complex”, whereby we were told home ownership was a right and entities like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would lend to anyone who wanted a house, resulting in a housing bubble. Now we are faced with a similar “lending-educational complex”, where educational institutions have convinced us of the universality of a right to education, all the while increasing their costs, paying unionized teaching labor forces, creating for-profit educational institutions, and leaving unsuspecting students with the bill. We need to wake up and see whats happening here.

The department of education is unconstitutional and incredibly inefficient. We have spent nearly $2 trillion on it and is it working?
70% of 8th graders cant read at grade level
American students rank 25th in math and 21st in science compared to students in 30 industrialized countries.
America’s top math students rank 25th out of 30 countries when compared with top students elsewhere in the world.
By the end of 8th grade, U.S. students are two years behind in the math being studied by peers in other countries.
Sixty eight percent of 8th graders can’t read at their grade level, and most will never catch up.
source: http://broadeducation.org/about/crisis_stats.html

Among adults age 25 to 34, the U.S. is ninth among industrialized nations in the share of its population that has at least a high school degree. In the same age group, the United States ranks seventh, with Belgium, in the share of people who hold a college degree.

Education is best provided by the free market, achieving greater quality and efficiency with more diversity of choice. Schools should be managed locally to achieve greater accountability and parental involvement. Recognizing that the education of children is inextricably linked to moral values, authority should be returned to parents to determine the education of their children, without interference from government. Parents should have control of all funds expended for their children’s education.

Poor children suffer the most under the current education system. Wealthy parents can afford to send their children to better or safer schools. Poor parents have no choice. Their children generally end up in the schools with the worst problems. These children end up at a public school, which is obligated to accept every local student, even those who are not interested in learning or who have a reputation for being disruptive or dangerous. The current system traps poor children in poor schools. Government schools lead to the indoctrination of children and interfere with the free choice of individuals. Government ownership, operation, regulation, and subsidy of schools and colleges should be ended.

To transfer control of education from bureaucrats to parents and teachers and encourage alternatives to the public school monopoly, these are the steps that can be taken:
Support a true market in education — one in which parents and students would not be stuck with a bad local school, because they could choose another.
Implement measures such as tax credits so that parents will have the financial ability to choose among schools.
Provide financial incentives for businesses to help fund schools and for individuals to support students other than their own children.
Eliminate the U.S. Department of Education, which spends billions on education and educates no one.
Private school funding should be treated the same as public schools. As an interim measure to encourage the growth of private schools and variety in education, including home schooling, there could be tax credits for tuition and other expenditures related to an individual’s education. Heres how the free market works with education: First get the government our of trying to run our economy and allow the free market to work, stop printing money and eventually no more inflation. Your money is worth alot more now. Now, get the government out of education. Since the schools arent being subsidized by the government, their prices would be determined by the free market, not by government intervention. Therefore, prices would adjust to their fair market rate. Heres how: tuition would eventually stop rising because families would cut back enrollment, especially at the most expensive private schools, just as they curtailed consumption of gas once prices hit $4 a gallon. Colleges would then be forced to cut costs or entrepreneurs would flood the market with lower-cost alternatives.

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