By Chris Basten

  When hundreds of people rally together at the rotunda of the state Capitol in support of government funding as they did in St. Paul on 2/19/04, I am reminded of a metaphor. I envision the roundup of cattle to their stanchions. They eagerly await the filling of their troughs and moo incessantly for more feed. According to the MN Sun Current, “The crowd encouraged the Minnesota Legislature to retain funding for such programs, if not increase funding.”

The programs referred to here are ones funded by the State for early education. Rep. Jim Rhodes declared, “We are standing here as Republicans and Democrats because kids are not political. It’s not party politics, it’s about kids.” True, early education is about the kids but I didn’t need an overpaid politician to tell me so.

The suggestion that the government should get out of the business of running educational programs usually does not sit well with people. They seem to think that the government invented schooling and that without centralized guidance, it would disappear from the face of the earth and all of our children would be stupid and destitute. This is far from the truth.

Like everything else that the government gets its grubby hands on, the federal and state powers complain that local educational programs never have enough money. This seems obvious since public schooling is so bankrupt (literally and figuratively speaking). The masses agree to what they are told and are compelled to vote for those politicians who say they will increase education funding the most. The logic seems to follow that the more money that is thrown at it, the better it will be. This could not be a more fatal line of reasoning.

In his book, Why Government Doesn’t Work, Harry Brown illustrates that since the government stepped up its subsidizing of elementary, secondary, and higher education in the 1960s, SAT scores of college-bound seniors have declined significantly. Why? Because public education focuses on subjects that parents should be responsible for. For instance, many public schools spend too much time teaching children about treating others as equals, being good citizens, or getting involved in neighborhood efforts like recycling. These may be good causes but this is not what school is meant for. Instead of focusing more on reading, writing, arithmetic, economics, and history, children are inundated with fitness programs, saying ‘no’ to drugs, and using condoms safely. Again, these are noble endeavors but they are proven failures and do not belong in an educational system. 

Peter McWilliams, from Ain’t Nobody’s Business If You Do, wonders:

What on earth is going on in our schools? More than 100,000 high school students take guns to class everyday; 5% of the population cannot fill out a job application; 13% are considered “illiterate”; 20% are considered “functionally incompetent”; 34% are considered “marginally competent”; and 80% cannot look at a bus schedule and determine what time the next bus arrives.

Any number of other practical matters aren’t directly taught in twelve years of schooling…The school system’s inability to teach the basics of life and how to make a living leads directly to poverty…There are 49.2 million people living below the poverty level in the United States. That’s 19.4% of the total population. More than 20 million of them are children. From 1978 to 1990, 20% more Americans fell below the poverty level (I guess trickle-down economics just didn’t trickle down far enough).

While I am skeptical of statistics overall, the numbers give us an idea that things aren’t good. In short, the government can’t sit still when they subsidize anything and education is no exception. They attach endless piles of bureaucracy and State-enforced programs to their subsidies and it only gets worse with each new administration. Public schools have become as political as the Capitol rotundas we gather at to push for more funding. But, as Harry Browne tells us, “No matter how much the federal government appropriates for education, no matter how many bond issues your school district approves, you hear over and over that there isn’t enough money for schools. But education has declined as the money spent on it has increased dramatically. Obviously, lack of money isn’t the problem…But education is dominated by government. And so long as it is, no significant improvement is possible.”

When schools become political forums to push for more government intrusion and spending, our children are dumbed down significantly. So much time is wasted on things like the Pledge of Allegiance, prayer in school, and teachers’ unions threatening to strike if they don’t get paid more to put up with the hellions they teach. Never mind that Junior is in school and can barely read or write and can’t multiply to save his life. Such nonsense as rewriting the history books to become more politically correct has taken precedence over what our children need.

And with all of the tax dollars needed to fund this wonderful system, both parents have to work. So Junior comes home to an empty household, eats without regard for nutritional value, and dumbs himself down further by watching TV all evening. In addition, restrictive Child Labor Laws forbid youths to gain any experience working until they are 16 in most states and even then their choices are flipping burgers or cutting lawns for the neighbors. Instead of spending time earning meager incomes for the valuable knowledge that accumulates from training in the marketplace, kids are forced into government-run institutions that don’t work. The State-promoted “Bring Your Child to Work Day” is not what is needed to gain valuable skills. Parents and their children should be allowed to negotiate the mix of education and training opportunities that they want to further a maturing youngster’s ability to become a s! elf-sufficient adult. Leave the government out of it.

Once ready to work, an unskilled young adult will enter the marketplace mostly blind to how it is run. Companies are forced by the government to pay a minimum wage and must pay for expensive training that could have been handled more economically while the child was in school. But again, because of laws that we fought to have against child labor, options are limited. Moreover, if someone does not want to waste more time and money on school, their lack of skills from being forced to go to school up until they are 16 limits their opportunities to be trained because businesses are already forced to hire someone worth paying minimum wage and benefits to.

For those individuals who value job training over sitting in a classroom desk to endure useless subjects they will never use, the prospects are bleak. This furthers dependence on government intervention through unemployment, welfare, and “affordable” housing. If all else fails, the government is happy to show us employment opportunities available through their fine system of taking money away from others. In short, the government is raising our children to become dependent adults—dependent on the government, that is.

The solution seems simple to me: get the government out of our schools and workplaces. Our dependence on the State from cradle to the grave is making us dumber, poorer, and more enslaved. We speak volumes about freedom of choice and then gather at our State Capitols begging for politicians to tax us more and save us from the work of educating or training children ourselves. We become a helpless, numbed out, dumbed down Socialist Republic the instant we ask for government assistance. The more we educate ourselves about this fact, the freer our educational systems will be.