A Quick Solution to An Age Old Problem

Many undoubtedly have heard of Judge John E. Jones III's ruling that Intelligent Design should not be taught alongside evolution in classrooms. Speaking from a geology and anthropology background, I understand the argument against evolution not being able to explain everything. The fossil record is more frequently changed and poorly understood now than perhaps it is have ever been. At the same time, I understand (although don't agree with) the secularist battle to eliminate any trace of what could be perceived as religion from the Public Square, and most especially public schools.

In the libertarian vein, though, I will have to side with Cal Thomas and ask that those who think public schools indoctrinate their children in beliefs other than those of the parents to remove their children from those institutions at once. Home school them or have them taught in private schools where they can learn what you want them to. The public system is too overrun by Left-leaning secularism to be won back and perhaps it shouldn't be.

I would also ask the government at the same time to help out those parents by massively reducing their tax burden and defunding public schools, at least in large part. This would let kids go back to private, and competitive schooling. If public schools taught only reading, writing and arithmetic, I might have a harder time arguing this point, but public schools have become the social experimental laboratories of the Left over the course of this century. New ideas and new belief-systems, as long as they're not Christian, are field-tested daily on children who are treated no better than guinea pigs in a mascara plant. Even when I was in high school, it was the common perception that the public high schools were merely holding pens to keep kids off the streets until they could enter the low-wage work force. That idea, I think, has only germinated further.

Children don't learn the valuable lessons that might actually prepare them for the real world anymore. They learn little of American and world history. They stumble and fall in math. Combine a growing illiteracy rate among the poorest who attend public school, a system that is funded with greater and greater levels of cash even under the "stingy" Republicans, and I dare anyone to argue that the public school system is worth saving.

It failed. Pure and simple. Anywhere else, we would have written it off and come up with something better. But this is government and when things fail you just fund them more. The answer is always more money and new theories to make use of that cash. The problem is, when you have a system as badly broken as the public schools, it's worth shutting the bulk of it down. Think of the tax savings you could pass on back to the parents, not only in income tax, but in property tax. That money could then be used to send kids to private schools. The reduced tax burden might even lighten the load on some families and allow a parent to stay at home and home-school their children.

Will it work for everyone? No, and it would be asinine to say it will. But it will work for the majority and that's more than can be said for the current system. If you can think of a system that would work even better than this, I'm all ears. Step forward and ye shall be heard. Otherwise, you should start putting pressure on your legislators and your Congressmen to seriously consider the future of public education in America and do it fast. Our kids are only getting dumber while we procrastinate.