You do realize that he/she is advocating privatizing education here. Not vouchers, complete privatization. If the parents can’t afford private tuition costs they don’t get to go to school. If both work or are unable to teach their kids, the go without any education at all. This is all about money, ie*. *I don’t want to help fund education for other people’s children. What works is irrelevant. Stay away from my income. Libertarian ideology dressed up with some faux nostalgia for a past the never existed. Anyone who disagrees is a socialist. Let’s se how many engineers or doctors we start producing when half the population can’t afford to adequately educate their kids, when money becomes the limiting factor.
You have interpolated some information which was not in my post. In fact, as you may recall, I said clearly that charity is the answer to our broken society, not government. Do not assume that I do not fully support a charitable system in which all people may freely give as they choose to support the needy who cannot afford schooling, even so much as to educate their own children at home. Charity is the cornerstone of our faith, and I could not call myself a Catholic without also giving myself willfully and happily to the cause of the least among us.
But we are not discussing charity in this forum. We are discussing government-run, socialized education. In liberal ideology, taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor is identical to the rich giving it of their own free will. In reality, though, there is a vast difference. It is one thing if I offer a good portion of my income to help educate needy children. It is an altogether different thing if a group of elitists decides to garnish my wages and give it out on my behalf as they see fit. One is free giving, the other is extortion.
Our annual property tax here is between $3,500 and $4,000. A large portion of that goes to our school district. That is, therefore, thousands of dollars which 1) I cannot invest in my own child’s education, which I deem to be much more important than to leave in the hands of the atheist-minded, politically correct, government run schoolboard, and 2) I cannot give to the charity – be it education, food, clothing, housing, medical, etc. – that I think needs it most in my area. Furthermore, I deeply resent a know-it-all, patronizing, elitist government telling me they know better than I do how to educate my own child, and how to spend my money in charity (much of which gets wasted, incidentally).
By the way, the Ivy League schools have recently begun recruiting homeschooled students becasue of their outstanding academics. I daresay many of these youngsters will become the great scientists, doctors, engineers, and literary minds of the future. It is a fatal mistake to underestimate the ability of a people-- rich or poor, educated or uneducated – to learn, grow, and rise to exceptional heights. Humans must be given much greater credit than this.
