I've
just been informed by a friend that school's closed this year, but you can send
your kid to daycare — in the closed school. For money.
There are online classes, of
course — but why? They're terrible for children, and we know now
that the disease itself isn't the issue. Matt Walsh reports that kids are three
times more likely to die of the flu than COVID-19. So we know that
schools aren't being closed for their safety. We heard that
childcare costs hundreds a month, per kid, which we know parents can't pay,
since many of them are too poor. We heard that teachers are
essential and then were told, by the teachers, that they're
inessential. L.A. County told us they'd take the children back — if
we could stop all "police brutality" and adopt universal health care
and mail-in voting.
The solution to this whole fraud is simple. Truth is, our
teachers are overpaid and incompetent. Why send your kid back to school when, according to The Root, 75% of all black
boys in California, where state
spending on students is enormous, can't read or write
proficiently? Why put your kids in a classroom where there are 30
students to one teacher? Or where you're a white God-fearing
conservative, and the teacher hates America? Or where teachers can't
discipline children because doing so is "racist"? Or where
you don't have the time to meet and assess all the teachers? Or
where grades are curved to pass dunces? Or where your voice gets
drowned out, as a parent, because the other parents won't stand up with you or
won't even show up?
The U.S. Census Bureau reports that
in 2019, a year when tax revenue was steady and teachers showed up for work,
Americans spent, on average, $12,000 a year per kid. In truth, we
spent it, but we didn't have the money. State, national, and
personal debt continues to dig us into a grave. Every year, we dump
money into this abyss, and the education largely gets worse. The
teachers get more radical. We don't get the classes we really
want. There are too many students per teacher. We don't
like the kids in the school. But what if we took this money that we don't
have? What if we cut it in half, put the money in the state fund,
and redistributed it to each and every kid in the state?
What this would mean is revolutionary. First off, note what it would do for teachers. No
longer paid a measly salary to be overrun and underequipped, the rate of pay
would skyrocket as the job itself would get easier. You recruit 15
kids, and now you've got 90,000 bucks. In a poor state, this is a
gold mine — less students and more capital. You spend $10,000
on materials (if that) and $15,000 on rent, and you're still left with
$65,000. This is at an easy $6,000 per kid, $747 less than the rock-bottom cost in
the cheapest state in the union (hello from us in Idaho). New York
State already spends $23,000 per student according to the Census
Bureau. What have we got to lose but our chains?
But note what it would do
for parents and students. First off, there's the choice. Teachers all over the union
could be personally interviewed and selected by cautious and interested
parents. They could be regulated, on some basic level, by the
state. They could be fired at will, and if not fired, then unhappy
parents could transfer schools — to another little red schoolhouse with
somebody more competent, or patriotic, or godly, or manly. Curricula, instead of
being left to every parent, in homeschool conventions, to pick through — an
overwhelming process — could be advertised by the teachers
themselves. Not only teaching, but what's learned will
become a matter of marketing. Organizations will spring up endorsing
candidates who fit their standards and values. Students will no
longer receive "an education" that's half vanilla, half poison, but something
more fine-tuned, more robust, more catered to the intelligence, the virtues,
the fine-breeding of the families themselves.
Racial disparities will be
immediately erased. Worried
that black children are underfunded and underserved? They will
receive the same money as white children, according to the state they live in,
and poor whites will receive the same money as rich whites. People
looking to teach their children Plutarch will win, and so will people teaching
children mechanics. There will be national standards on math and
science and English. The states will set their standards beyond this, according to their cultures and their
average level of intelligence.
There remains an important and troublesome
question. How will this be put into action? I'm not here to give you a complete plan. But
there are teachers all over the nation who recognize this opportunity. Principals
who've run large schools and will know how to establish little
ones. The fact that each teacher can own his own business — the way
God intended it, and the way things were run when America and England were on the
upswing — will mean that extremely talented teachers will suddenly become big
business. Parents can put in more money as they
choose. So can the states. Regulatory agencies will find
ways to ensure that the money goes to schools and isn't squandered, and
parents, whose money and children are directly involved, will probably beat the
regulators to it. Churches and civic organizations will put their
stamps on great teachers. Masses of money, spent on janitors,
security guards, principals, and other such necessaries, will become
unnecessary. Sports, so important to keeping schools funded, will no
longer be the top priority. The education of our children will become
paramount. The people most interested in education — the parents —
will have supreme power. And a
chokehold on the American people, held for so long by communists,
incompetents, and radicals of all sorts, will be absolutely broken.
Idaho, where this
writer lives, is ranked 35th in
education and is also the least regulated
state in the union. It's filled with free people who don't like the
left wing, don't like being told what to do, and hate an imbalanced
budget. I propose we start the experiment here, and when it succeeds
— Lord willing — we'll take it to the rest of the nation.
Jeremy Egerer is the author of the
troublesome essays on Letters to
Hannah, and he welcomes followers on Twitter and Facebook.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/08/to_save_america_defund_the_schools.html