Heres A Good Question For You Why Have Public Schools At All

Here's a good question for you: Why Have public schools at all?

OK, Cue the marching music. Because We Need Public Schools blah blah blah and yada yada yada. We Could Say blah IS common culture and yada Is The Government's interest in Promoting The General Welfare. Now That Children Are The Future. And a mind is a terrible thing to waste. Because We Can not Leave Any Child Behind.

The Problem with All These bromides IS optometrist leave out The Simple Fact That One Of The surest Ways to leave a kid "behind" Is To hand over To The HIM government. Americans want universal education, just as They Want Universally safe food. Thats the goal nobody Believes Government Should run 90 percent Of The restaurants, farms, and supermarkets. Why Should it run 90 percent of the Schools - When It particularly gets terrible results?

Consider Washington, home of the Nation's Most Devoted Government lovers and, ironically, the City arguably With The Worst Public Schools in the country. Out of the 100 Largest School Districts, According to the Washington Post, DC Ranks Third in Spending For Each pupil - $ 12.979 - to last in Spending on education. Fifty-six cents out of Every dollar goes to administrators Who, it's no secret, do a miserable job Administrating, Even though DC Schools Have Been in a state of "reform" for Nearly 40 years.

In a blistering series, the Post has Documented how badly The Bureaucrat Have run public education. More Than Half Of The District of Columbia's Kids Spend Their Days in "persistently dangerous" schools, With An average of nine violent incidents a day in a System with 135 schools. "Principals reporting dangerous conditions or Urgently Needed repairs in buildings Their wait is average, 379 days ... for The Problems To Be Fixed," According to the Post. Goal hey, at least the kids are getting a lousy education. A mere 19 schools managed to get "proficient" scores or better for a Majority of Students On The district's Comprehensive Assessment Test.

A standard response to Criticisms Such Is To Say We Do not Spend Enough is public education. Were the purpose if money solution, would not The District, Which Spends Nearly $ 13,000 On Every kid, rank near the top? If you think more money Will Fix the schools, make your checks out to "cash" and send 'em to me.

Private, parochial, and charter schools get Better results. Parents know this. Applications for vouchers in The District dwarf The available supply, and home schooling has exploded.

As for schools Teaching Kids About the common culture and All That, as a conservative I could not agree more. Goal Is There Evidence That Better public schools are at it? According To The 2006 National Assessment of Educational Progress history and civics exams, two-Thirds of U.S. high school seniors Could Identify The Significance of a photo of a theater With A sign reading "Colored Entrance." And keep in mind, political correctness That pretty much Guarantees Jim Crow & the civil-rights movement are included in syllabi. Imagine how few "Kids Can Intelligently Discuss Manifest Destiny or free silver.

Right now, There's a Renewed Debate about Providing "universal" health insurance. For Some liberals, this means clustering Simply replicating du public-school model for health care. (Stop laughing.) Purpose for Others, This Means That mandating everyone Have Health Insurance - Just As We Have instructs That All drivers car insurance - And Then Throwing tax dollars at Poorer folks to make sure no one falls Through the cracks.

There's a consensus in America That Every Child Should Get An Education, goal ace David Gelernter Recently Noted in The Weekly Standard, there's no such consensus That's Public Schools Need to Do the Educating.

Really, What Would Be So terrible about Government mandating That Every kid has to go to school, and Providing Subsidies and ove.