Why get the government involved at all ? As an example, catholic parochial schools educate the K-8 group at a cost of about $ 2000 per year. If I took my property taxes as somewhat standard for a suburban area, I could pay to put 4 kids thru K-8 without one additional dime.
Why do all of you insist the government still has a role at all ? No tax credits, no vouchers, no property taxes, no state subsidies, no federal tax dollars. You would be surprised how cheap education would be, and how well accomplished kids would become when it becomes a voluntary activity.
In colonial days, an educated citizen used to spend no more than 3 years in a school situation, and some additional years before that at home spending a few hours a day at home learning to read, write, and do arithmetic. The statistic is that 97% of the population was at least literate(could read). Boys used to start attending Harvard University at 14 or 15. Are we intellectually inferior than our ancestors ? Men and women became productive members of the business community without 16 years of schooling. And please, don't use technology as the excuse for a greater need for education. Kids teach themselves computer skills with no problem.
Government has no business at all in the educational field except to indoctrinate the young and control society.
No. We homeschool, and we are pretty confident that our childeren will be done with High School by ages 14 or 15.
Why do all of you insist the government still has a role at all ?
I don't insist this at all. (I merely posted this for comment, not to endorse it.) I agree that the ideal, perfect-world situation (and the one that I would pick when and if I am in charge of these things) would be to get government completely out of this field.
As a practical matter, however, I don't see them getting out of the "education" business (unless the government goes out of business altogether), and I would be interested in the possiblity of getting some of my taxes back that I'm paying into a failed "education" system that I have opted out of. Tuition tax credits seemed like they might be a less-intrusive method of doing this than vouchers. If it meant having to knuckle under to government's rules and indoctrination, however, they can keep the money. (Which is why I wouldn't do a voucher, BTW, for the reasons that have been discussed in the article.)
Government has no business at all in the educational field except to indoctrinate the young and control society.
Agreed. That's the biggest reason that we homeschool.
I agree with you, but from a political sense, it makes more sense to move to charter schools first, (as documented by my previous link), and then move to the pure libertarian system wherby eduacation is in the hands of the people and not in the power of government at all.
Step by step.