The Great Fraud

THE GREAT FRAUD


An important and controversial topic in today’s world is the issue of illegal immigration. Many people believe immigrants come in and try to take over of America for its freedom, and all the many great things in this nation. Once, I overheard two people talking, one person half-jokingly say (to more or less of this degree), "If you take away a free economy, free education, and all of the other things that make America great, then the Mexicans won’t want to come here anyway, and it will all be good." He was half-joking, but the main point was that America has many great things that the Mexican immigrants are after- even illegally.

This may be true somewhat, but one thing really caught my ear in what was said. He used the term "free education." Before going into detail, may I give you an economics 101 lesson: "Nothing is free- someone pays for everything somewhere."

The teachers are paid. The people who write the text-books are paid. The people who build the school buildings and all other on-campus facilities are paid. In fact, many people are begging for teachers to get paid more, and more great things in the schools. There is money involved in the public school system, and it is coming from somewhere. Where is it coming from?

Essentially, it is coming from the government. But where does government receive its money? There are three basic ways the government gets money. One is to print off money. One is to borrow money from other countries. And the third way is to tax its people. The first of these ways is basically useless, because inflation will take over and make the "money" useless (as has happened in America). The second way will get you money at first, but then those nations will want it back. The third way is the way the government obtains useful money without having to pay it back. This way is, of course, taxing the people.

So essentially, you pay for education. You pay for the public schools, and the government, the official treasurer of them, controls the schools. In fact, government (public) schools spend more per pupil than the average private school costs per pupil- and all of this is at the expense of degrading the education system. Furthermore, you still pay for education even if you are widowed, have no children, have two children in school, or eight children in school. It is unfair. Some claim that it is fair because it helps the "common good." But you will privately pay for the services the products of public schools do anyway. The private sector seems to offer better people for the "real world" than public schools do anyway. America, with all of its money, is still just mediocre in education when compared to other countries. The public school students fair worse than the private school students.

I know that some would say the reason private schools do better is because the private schools have more money (this myth already busted above, however), because they can accept and deny their students, and because they have to be better in order to obtain any students. Even the last two are not completely true when backed with statistics, but even yet, however it is, the point is that the private education system is above the public school system. If education is so important (as it is, and as proponents of government schools claim), then we should have the best system for our children. If the private school sector does it better, then shouldn’t this be the standard?

Proponents of government schools tell us that education is "too important to be left to the competitive free market." But isn’t the education of our children too important to be left in the hands of politicians- politicians we may or may not like, and who lie and buy their way into office? The free market provides competition and choice. Competition and choice offer great incentives and opportunities for teachers, parents, and students.

Still, public school proponents tell us it is to help the poor people. But if this was the case, should the government set up a government housing system, where you pay money and the government gives you the house of their choice, not your choosing? This is essentially how it happens in education. You pay money for the government to send you to a school you may or may not like.

This brings up another point. What if the government did "give" you a house as was mentioned above, and that this house was not one of your choosing? This gives a "one size fits all approach." Do we want this in education? I think not. There are many different ways one can learn. We don’t want a post-office style education. We want advances, an freedom. There are many different areas where people are gifted at such as sports, music, business, mathematics, communications, etc. This may sound like college, but we can still use the same general basic principle of choice in elementary, middle, and high schools. People learn in different ways, and do not need a "one size fits all" approach.

Furthermore, all of this is not even to mention the different religions, and political ideologies. If there is a separation of church and state, there should be a separation of school and state. Ultimately, one’s education is going to come in terms with religion, politics, and moral philosophy. Why do you think there is debate over prayer and God’s name used in school, evolution taught in school, sex education in school, etc? Ultimately, these are decisions that should be made by the parents, but can not to some level be avoided in education (especially when education is for over seven hours a day, five days a week, and nine months a year). Questions such as the existence of God, the probability- or lack thereof- of evolution, and all other sorts of political, religious, and philosophical questions can not be avoided entirely- at least not without minimizing education to a politically correct standard, which would make many parents mad. Even neutrality is a special kind of bias.

So what does all of this tell us? It tells us that the government takes your money, forces you to go to school, then funds and teaches children according the government’s standards. Our founders showed no signs of favoring a common and government-sponsored education system. In fact, it was mostly Northern intellectuals in the mid 1800’s that favored this- for the purpose of indoctrinating children with their views and interpretation of history and the world around us. Perhaps "free education" should be renamed "forced indoctrination." This really is a great fraud.
So what should happen? All education should be made private. Taxes should be lowered so that any money being budgeted for education would go back into the hands of the people- where it belongs. Furthermore, all compulsory attendance laws should be taken away. Education is your choice and your duty. Compulsory attendance laws hurt the private sector too because it gives the government a chance to define what school is or is not. Even in the private sector, this is a certain amount of government control.

If this seems so foreign to you, I understand. But I ask that you open-mindedly ask yourself two questions. First, is government education Constitutional? Politicians that we elect swear an oath of loyalty to the Constitution. Where does the U.S. Constitution give government the right to sponsor much less control education? The second question is whose right is education anyway- the free people, or the government? I think that that question is obvious.

What do you think?

God bless America

Pray for our troops.

September 16, 2007

Ryan Hampton