Separation of School and State

"Suppose that newspapers were run by government and funded by taxpayers, and that each American was assigned to read only the newspaper published in his or her local area. Clearly, the resulting quality of journalism would be atrocious.

Would anyone seriously suggest that this problem would be solved if only there were better schools of journalism, or higher pay for journalists, or more people who are “called” to journalism, or newspaper readers who take more active roles in digesting and interpreting the news? Surely not. All sensible people would understand that these fixes would all fail as long as newspapers faced no competition – indeed, as long as journalism is produced by the state." - Don Boudreaux

The above was a letter to the New York Times editor, on the subject of education. It is also one of the finest points I have heard made in the neverending discussion of how to fix our education system.

But reading it gave me an idea: We need a Constitutional Amendment, along the lines of the 1st Amendment, which will separate the federal government from ANY involvement in our schools. I would suggest something worded as follows:

Congress shall make no law respecting any establishment or form of education, or abridging the rights of the people to acquire education in any manner. Congress is also restricted from providing any funds for the purpose of education.

I can hear the squeals of protest already, but think about it: If the federal government cannot provide funding, they cannot put strings on it either.

Also, do we really need to funnel money for college educations through the federal government? Last time I checked, there are still many people in the U.S. without a college education. So exactly how do federal scholarship funding and college loans actually help ALL of us? There are plenty of private scholarship funds out there which could do the same job as the federal government. If people believe in providing scholarships for college educations, let them donate their money to the private scholarship funds, rather than have their money taken from them under the implied threat of government force which supports our income tax system?

In addition, without having to send education money to the federal government, there will be more money available in the private sector to enable the EXACT amount of education funding we need, rather than the amount our legislators THINK we need.

Finally, in K-12 education, let the states and local school boards decide how education should be done, rather than having to promote some federally mandated curriculum, which has done nothing to help the state of education in this country. (Although I think the states should only be involved in education funding, NOT in the actual business of education. But that is a separate discussion.)

We have tried everything in public education, and NONE of it works. It is time to remove the federal government from the education system completely.

Government at work (6/11/08 edition)

I enjoyed my last post about the absurdity of government, I figured I would do it again!

WE DON'T HAVE TO GIVE YOU OUR STEENKEENG CRIMINAL RECORDS!
You have to love the un mitigated gall of public school districts. They take our tax dollars to educate our children because they can allegedly do it better.

Take the Austin, Texas school district for example (from 590KLBJ.com):

[The Austin School District] is fighting a ruling that makes them give out statistical information on how many teachers have a criminal history.

The Attorney General has told the district they have to comply with open records requests to give the information to the media. The district is arguing that releasing information of how many people on each campus came back with a criminal record violates employees’ privacy rights and is not in the public interest.

Why would a public entity which is responsible for our childrens' education be allowed to HIRE people with a criminal history, let alone keep that fact confidential?

Obviously, the eyes of Texas missed this one.

FREE SPEECH IS GOOD, BUT ONLY IF ALLAH SAYS SO
Political correctness is legislated north of the border, as columnist Mark Steyn has found out. The Canadian Human Rights Commission has Steyn on trial for spreading hate in a book excerpt that was printed in Canada's newsweekly Maclean's(from Robert Knight at Townhall.com):

A highlighted piece of the case was a comment from an imam, Mullah Krekar, that Steyn drew from an interview in a Norwegian newspaper:

‘“We’re the ones who will change you,’ the cleric said. ‘Just look at the development within Europe, where the number of Muslims is expanding like mosquitoes. Every Western woman in the EU [European Union] is producing an average of 1.4 children. Every Muslim woman in the same countries is producing 3.5 children. …Our way of thinking will prove more powerful than yours.’”

Yep, sounds like hate speech to me. The Canadians ought to be trying the imam.

THE BRIDGE TO DISNEYLAND
Thanks to President Bush's signature on the Democratic Congress's transportation bill, $45 million of our tax dollars are going to help pay for a MagLev train from Disneyland to Las Vegas. This from the Associated Press:

...the train would use magnetic levitation technology to carry passengers from Disneyland to Las Vegas in well under two hours, traveling at speeds of up to 300 mph.

...The money is the largest cash infusion in the project's nearly 20-year history. It will pay for environmental studies for the first leg of the project.

...The train is meant to ease traffic on increasingly clogged Interstate 15, the main route for the millions of Southern Californians who make the 250-plus-mile drive to Las Vegas each year. There is no train on the route — Amtrak's Desert Wind between Los Angeles and Las Vegas was canceled in 1997 because of low ridership.

Let me get this straight: The last train route between these areas was cancelled due to low ridership 11 years ago, yet this project has been going on for 20 YEARS?!

In other words, those of us who do NOT live in L.A. or Las Vegas need to help pay for a train between one of the Disney Company's (made $1.1 billion net profit last quarter ALONE) primo amusement parks, and all the casinos (I can't even begin to guess where to look for their profits. Too many of them) in Vegas?

Explain to me why does the federal government need to blow my money in order for Los Angelinos to be able to get to Vegas quicker to blow their money?

If you ever needed it, there is the proof our government is truly "goofy".