The public school system is abysmal. It just gets worse, as each year passes. Whenever something is “free,” it is never appreciated, no matter what it may be. of course it isn’t “free” at all. Federal spending on education, has gone from under $2 billion a year in 1966 to $54.5 billion in 2002. Why is there a department of education anyway? In Colorado, there are 91 “charter” schools with enrollment of 30,000. One of them has a waiting list of 5,000! Public schools are big business. Big for contractors and union teachers anyway. Public schools aren’t teaching, and while spending has escalated, reading skills have been absolutely flat, as have other skills supposedly being taught in public schools. Everyone is so used to the word “public” in schools, that few ever consider why there should be such in the first place. Suppose government had a monopoly on making autos? Imagine what they would look like! About like a 1937 Hudson probably, as no government agency, or entity ever does anything efficiently or economically. It has been free enterprise and non-governmental brains that made America great, and it is bureaucracy and politics that is destroying us. Why not sell off the public schools, one at a time, in each community, to private educators, and release the parents of those children from their property taxes which pay for the public school no longer attended? There has to be some way of getting the albatross of public schools from around our collective necks, and in to the private, for profit sector. Profit is not a nasty word, but is the key to any success.
In my small town of 13,000, the silly voters passed a $18 million bond fund to build new deluxe facilities for the little darlings, while the school population dropped by 50, and achievement levels haven’t improved a single bit. American public schools are nuts for athletics, which have about as much to do with a successful life, as petting your dog. All the razzmatazz about football, and gym is just absurd. Sure, play football, and baseball and soccer, but not between the hours of 9 and 3! Let’s have a bit of reading, writing, and arithmetic for a change. Johnny must read and do math in order to succeed. The touchdown in the last quarter means nothing for a kid’s future. That’s the way I see it anyway.