Homeschooling Can’t Be for Everyone (barf alert...from National Review!)

The pandemic exposed the warts of the public-school system. Students suffered academically, and the recent emergence of critical race theory has concerned many parents. While there have been high-profile cases of parents standing up to school boards against school closings and critical race theory, a record number of parents are turning to homeschooling. While the desire to personally shepherd one’s child should be commended, homeschooling en masse cannot be the answer to our educational crisis.

...A new report from the Associated Press found that the number of homeschooled children doubled over just six months. One family described their decision this way: “I didn’t want my kids to become a statistic and not meet their full potential,” said Robert Brown, a former teacher who now does consulting. “And we wanted them to have very solid understanding of their faith.”

...However, a mass exodus of conservative children from the public-school system is not a workable solution on a national scale.

For one, there are many people who cannot afford to homeschool their children. Poorer families may be unable to live on just one income. More affluent families may not want to dramatically decrease their standard of living by cutting off an income stream....

Yet, even if a critical mass of conservative parents were willing to leave the public-school system, most of the population would still be educated in a traditional setting. A full 91 percent of students attend some form of public school, be it a charter school or an assigned public school. Furthermore, between 30 and 40 percent of Americans identify as conservatives. Thus, even if every conservative household homeschooled or sent their children to a private school, this would still leave the “woke” curriculum as the dominant educational force.

That’s why I put it in quotes.

“Free” isn’t free, even if it’s a Covid shot, farm subsidies, school lunches, loan forgiveness, or the EPA handing out wads of cash to green business ideas...

Worse yet, folks in government have an accounting system that basically rewards waste (if you don’t use it, you lose it). It’s almost the end of the federal fiscal year...

Government has no real concept of risk. They are generally risk adverse because the concept that things with a reward usually have some degree of risk associated with them is foreign. There is no bottom line, concept of ROI, or customer.

Government run anything turns into the US Postal Service, VA, or public schools. They are disconnected from the customer since there is no direct payment. The actual customer (students and parents) in a public school have no control because they lost the power of the purse. The school gets paid by a government, not you. So guess how much you really matter?

That is why a voucher system would turn this situation around, but it’s also why the teachers unions, even the government bureaucracy opposes this idea, they want to control the money and outcome. You’re just supposed to pay and be happy with whatever pungent smelling government cheese they serve you.

It’s that way with all government run institutions.

I go to the VA occasionally. You’ll find many folks there that do care, do try, want to do well...

***But in a system that is managed by politicians and bureaucrats at the most senior levels, where you have little legal recourse and don’t control the money as the customer, what do you expect?***

I know many teachers care. It’s not an attack on the people working in these organizations, rather on a system that by design is inefficient, and in terms of customer focus ineffective.

The greatest idea in the last decades, which IMHO would reform US public schools, is the school voucher. It would put the power of the purse back into the customers hand. It would create competition and reward success.

Typical government MO is to pump more money into a failing school even if in some cases they already get more money than private schools in the same zip code that are doing well - or getting more money per child as in the more affluent areas not far away. Guess what? In 5 years the failing school is still failing.

Governments love to reinforce failure and think throwing money at a problem will fix it. In fact, failure in government is often turned into a cry for a greater budget, as after Benghazi, 9-11... HRC turned her failure in Benghazi into a debate about how the State Department needed more money.

You need government, but you want to keep their share/activity as part of the economy small. Government does not create wealth. It merely redistributes it at best, or destroys it: EPA, ATF, TSA... What is the entire role of the ATF? How do they contribute to increasing wealth in terms of building/making anything tangible? Why do you think most battery manufacturing has left the US? How does the TSA costing the US taxpayer $9,000,000,000 a year and that has caught zero (0) terrorists since their inception contribute to the free movement of people, goods, services and ideas? There are entire agencies in the US government today who see their purpose in life in destroying wealth.

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