Bryan Fischer
Comprehensive education reform in 14 words
By Bryan Fischer
Follow me on Twitter: @BryanJFischer, on Facebook at "Focal Point"
Zero Hedge reports this morning the tragic statistic that 23% of Americans are illiterate. This explains many things, including why liberals keep getting elected to office. Too many Americans who are unable to read and, unable to think for themselves, swallow the pabulum they are fed by the meanstream media and the self-anointed elites in academia.
The Massachusetts' Bay Colony was the first to insist on universally available public education by passing the first laws to that effect in 1642, 1647 and 1648. The Puritans correctly regarded ignorance as a satanic device by which people could be deceived into making all sorts of personally and socially destructive choices, such as electing a fascist as the leader of the free world.
(Note: the term fascist is not used pejoratively here but descriptively. Under socialism, the government owns the means of production. A fascist such as President Obama allows you to own your own business, but tells you how to run it.)
The law of 1647 is still known to history as the "old deluder Satan act" since its stated purpose was for children to learn "to write and read" so that they could spot lies and error when they were presented to them.
As we have gotten further and further from the true end of education, the American people have gotten progressively less knowledgeable and less able to fend for themselves intellectually. We have reached the point now where Barack Obama delivered the second dumbest State of the Union speech in American history, exceeded in literary vapidness only by George H.W. Bush's final SOTU speech in 1992.
Why do these speeches have to be dumbed down? Because they are being delivered to a dumbed down people, a people dumbed down by a hopelessly inept and corrupt system of public education.
Here is the silver bullet solution to education reform: allow education dollars to follow each student to the school of his parents' choice.
(As a side note, Sen. Rand Paul made it clear in his SOTU response that this would be his education agenda as president.)
Putting parents rather than government bureaucrats in charge of these decisions would so radically transform our education system we wouldn't need to do anything else.
If ordinary parents had the same choices that elites do – to put their chilldren in the school of their choice – schools which were getting the job done would be rewarded and schools that didn't would go out of business. Parents talk to other parents, and excellent schools would be identified almost instantly. And if such schools filled up, parents would insist on the startup of another one just like it.
Parents love their children more than anyone else in the world, and are in the best position to select an educational environment that is best for them. To make things fair, every parent would receive the same amount for each child. Then let's let them pick a school – any school, whether public, charter, private or parochial – based on the educational needs of their child and not on the basis of zip code or some outmoded notion of a mythical and unconstitutional separation between church and state.
No school should be off limits. The money is going to the parent, not to the school, and the parent – who provides those funds through the sweat of his own brow – should have complete discretion as to where those dollars are spent. Each taxpayer is a member of the public, and every school which serves the community is therefore a public school no matter who runs it.
These schools should have complete latitude to decide curriculum and priorities based on serving the families who are depending upon them. If atheists want an atheist school, they should be able to send their kids to an atheist school, along with the other six atheist kids in town. If they want to send their kid to a failing secularized school, they should be able to do that too. And if they want to send their kid to a school where the Bible is read and prayers are prayed, they should be able to do that. After all, it's their money.
An educated people is an empowered people, empowered to think for themselves and choose for themselves. And that's exactly what liberals in the education establishment are afraid of.
(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)
© Bryan Fischer
February 15, 2013
Follow me on Twitter: @BryanJFischer, on Facebook at "Focal Point"
Zero Hedge reports this morning the tragic statistic that 23% of Americans are illiterate. This explains many things, including why liberals keep getting elected to office. Too many Americans who are unable to read and, unable to think for themselves, swallow the pabulum they are fed by the meanstream media and the self-anointed elites in academia.
The Massachusetts' Bay Colony was the first to insist on universally available public education by passing the first laws to that effect in 1642, 1647 and 1648. The Puritans correctly regarded ignorance as a satanic device by which people could be deceived into making all sorts of personally and socially destructive choices, such as electing a fascist as the leader of the free world.
(Note: the term fascist is not used pejoratively here but descriptively. Under socialism, the government owns the means of production. A fascist such as President Obama allows you to own your own business, but tells you how to run it.)
The law of 1647 is still known to history as the "old deluder Satan act" since its stated purpose was for children to learn "to write and read" so that they could spot lies and error when they were presented to them.
As we have gotten further and further from the true end of education, the American people have gotten progressively less knowledgeable and less able to fend for themselves intellectually. We have reached the point now where Barack Obama delivered the second dumbest State of the Union speech in American history, exceeded in literary vapidness only by George H.W. Bush's final SOTU speech in 1992.
Why do these speeches have to be dumbed down? Because they are being delivered to a dumbed down people, a people dumbed down by a hopelessly inept and corrupt system of public education.
Here is the silver bullet solution to education reform: allow education dollars to follow each student to the school of his parents' choice.
(As a side note, Sen. Rand Paul made it clear in his SOTU response that this would be his education agenda as president.)
Putting parents rather than government bureaucrats in charge of these decisions would so radically transform our education system we wouldn't need to do anything else.
If ordinary parents had the same choices that elites do – to put their chilldren in the school of their choice – schools which were getting the job done would be rewarded and schools that didn't would go out of business. Parents talk to other parents, and excellent schools would be identified almost instantly. And if such schools filled up, parents would insist on the startup of another one just like it.
Parents love their children more than anyone else in the world, and are in the best position to select an educational environment that is best for them. To make things fair, every parent would receive the same amount for each child. Then let's let them pick a school – any school, whether public, charter, private or parochial – based on the educational needs of their child and not on the basis of zip code or some outmoded notion of a mythical and unconstitutional separation between church and state.
No school should be off limits. The money is going to the parent, not to the school, and the parent – who provides those funds through the sweat of his own brow – should have complete discretion as to where those dollars are spent. Each taxpayer is a member of the public, and every school which serves the community is therefore a public school no matter who runs it.
These schools should have complete latitude to decide curriculum and priorities based on serving the families who are depending upon them. If atheists want an atheist school, they should be able to send their kids to an atheist school, along with the other six atheist kids in town. If they want to send their kid to a failing secularized school, they should be able to do that too. And if they want to send their kid to a school where the Bible is read and prayers are prayed, they should be able to do that. After all, it's their money.
An educated people is an empowered people, empowered to think for themselves and choose for themselves. And that's exactly what liberals in the education establishment are afraid of.
(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)
© Bryan Fischer
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
