Rick Santorum suggests opposition to public schooling

Campaigning in Idaho on Tuesday, Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum suggested that he is opposed to a public school system overseen by the government.

"We didn't have government-run schools for a long time in this country, for the majority of the time in this country," he said. "We had private education. We had local education. Parents actually controlled the education of their children. What a great idea that is."

Santorum's campaign did not respond to multiple requests for an explanation of whether he was calling for an end to public schooling as it now exists. But the former Pennsylvania senator has previously made his antagonism known. Campaigning in March, Santorum took a shot at public schools.

"Just call them what they are," he said. "Public schools? That's a nice way of putting it. These are government-run schools."

Santorum makes a point of his support for home schooling. All of his children have been home schooled, and he has even suggested he would home school in the White House, a situation that he said "would certainly be a shock to the establishment."

The Hill newspaper mined Santorum's 2005 book It Takes a Family for his views on schooling. In that book, Santorum called "mass education" an "aberration."

"Never before and never again after their years of mass education will any person live and work in such a radically narrow, age-segregated environment," wrote Santorum. "It's amazing that so many kids turn out to be fairly normal, considering the weird socialization they get in public schools."

He added: "In a home school, by contrast, children interact in a rich and complex way with adults and children of other ages all the time. In general, they are better-adjusted, more at ease with adults, more capable of conversation, more able to notice when a younger child needs help or comfort, and in general a lot better socialized than their mass-schooled peers."

Santorum has not always home schooled his children, however. When Santorum was serving in the Senate, he decided to effectively move his family to Virginia - a situation that would cause political problems for the then-Pennsylvania senator.

Santorum did not enroll his kids in local Pennsylvania schools, and he did not home school them: Instead, he enrolled five of them in the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School. The "cyber" school is considered a public school, as Mother Jones notes, where students have to meet state requirements. It also provides free computers and other perks, and the Penn Hills school district ended up shelling out $38,000 per year for the Santorum children.

Santorum reportedly ended up withdrawing his children from the school. He did not repay the district, though the state ultimately paid the district $55,000 to cover the tuition fees.

Personally I agree with you, Santorum is a C level candidate at best, and has no chance in my mind of winning a general election. I do fear he gets the nod we are almost certain to have another 4 years of Barry.

I think Newt is the best in terms of actually winning, he will take on Obama directly, and can handle the press and liberal attack dogs and turn it back on them.

Romney and Santorum are milk toasts IMHO. Though Romney probably will fair far better in a general than Santorum, because he is “safe” I don’t like him, and think its crazy that the republican party is going to put up a pro abortion new england liberal as their nominee, but he’ll do a fine site better than Santorum in a general.

I believe Newt however is the best chance to win, not only can newt win, an Newt Win would be an IDEOLOGICAL WIN, not a try to avoid offending the most people win, or tit for tat sleeze attack win. Newt would make the election a true ideological decision to the electorate and when he wins would carry with it his agenda to the congress... it would be a full on repudiation of not only Obama, but progressivism in its entirety, and that is what we need.

Media is warming up to “Palin” Santorum. They are only at about 1% strength right now. GOP’ers can’t say ANYTHING of substance at all without it being mischaracterized. Of course, Obama can say ANYTHING, knowing the media has his back. It is sad how little the “conservative media” has progressed in the past 4 years.

"Media" is a poor choice of words, for two reasons:

You aren't referring so much to the medium, you are talking about the topical nonfiction genre of literature more specifically known as wire service journalism.

Wire service journalism is a singular, not a plural, noun. It is true that there are many outlets of wire service journalism and that there are clear distinctions to be found in the perspectives of those outlets. It is even true that there is more than one wire service. But the wire services all have the same effect of homogenizing the entire rest of journalism apart from the editorial/op-ed page, and in the same way - they make journalism a monopoly, wherein the only mortal sin a journalist can commit is to question the "objectivity" of another journalist in good standing.
Once journalism becomes a monopoly, it naturally becomes leftist. Why? Because criticism is journalism's default condition, and leftism is simply an extreme form of criticism of those who work to a bottom line. Journalism promotes itself by criticizing those who get thing done. And journalism promotes itself by giving good PR to non-journalists who join them in criticizing the people who, collectively, organize the economy.
Socialism is simply the idea that critics run things better than people who work to a bottom line do.

"Just call them what they are," he said. "Public schools? That's a nice way of putting it. These are government-run schools."

Love it! A candidate willing to use the phrase "government-run schools". Perhaps Hope and Change is indeed possible.

Isn’t that the problem? I tried to express that in my post, it is what made it hard to write — of course there are problems, and there are people who need help, but can’t we address that without government?

Well, you can’t, if you want to guarantee they all get helped. (Government can’t do that either, but the presupposition is that if government has a program, everybody who needs it is miraculously helped).

Churches provide much of the foundation for help in this country, or did before government. But there were also secular charities, because society saw the need. But then society, which controls the government, decided that it was easier to use their government for this than to maintain separate charities. Also, government could compel charity out of everybody (taxes).

If I thought Gingrich was proposing a non-government solution simply as a way to explain how he could get government out of it, I wouldn’t mind, but I don’t think that is what he is saying.

society, which controls the government, decided

"Society" doesn't make decisions, people do.
Common Sense
By Thomas Paine
SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.
Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamities is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer! Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him out of two evils to choose the least. Wherefore, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.