Our title is pretty much a summation of how the education system should function. In the ‘Modern Era’ schools have largely been public; with private and religious schools operating presumably without receiving government monies. We are told that either there can be public schools which run in some form of coercive relationship with the teacher’s unions or the monies used for the public schools can be divided and follow the individual student seeking some new privately-run school systems with varying levels of quality. The status quo will always favor the existing system no matter how unequal and unfair it is, especially in the inner city, less wealthy areas and rural areas. We would like to present the ultimate compromise which will improve education at all levels.
School House
We see no reason to rid ourselves of the entirety of the public school systems as they can serve to fill an adequately sufficient percentage of the students and thus remain viable. Attaching education funds to the individual student, initially only Federal dollars unless states volunteer to join their education funds, would allow for a new group of private schools to become viable. Many of these schools would be willing to accept the shared funds per student alone or with a far more affordable payment from either scholarship or private funds (i.e., parents or loans). The public school system would continue, as they are the only truly guaranteed educational institution having no additional cost to the student or family and thus seen as less of a threat. Public schools will not close and go out of business halfway through the school year, if not semester, leaving the student and family high and dry. But, on the other side, the private schools with the better reputation will be sought after, and those not quite at the same elevated level will offer the best they are able. The better ranked schools would either require additional payment or have entrance requirements and testing. There will also be a far wider range of schools provided instead of the one size fits all public schools. Trade schools could become available training students as apprentices learning a trade. There could be schools specializing in electronics, programming, arts, cooking, STEM or just about anything else your mind might invent. Schools would be free to decide if they want union or non-union teachers.
Yes, some schools will be substandard and likely fail. Home schooling will probably increase beyond government ability to monitor, leaving that to the student and parents. There will be the need for specialist teachers for individual subjects who can provide needed skillsets and instructions both for home-schoolers and as substitutes at other schools. Both complete school systems and individual specialist educators combined as needed could fill in where all-in-one systems cannot tread. There may even be school systems offered by groups of corporations providing them with a rich pool from where to employ. The greatest benefit of such a system is that the public school systems will improve and become responsible to the communities they serve thus those who go private will be taking full responsibility while the public schools will work to improve their perception in the community responsibly but without government interference at the Federal level. Each state and only each state has the right to regulate their own education requirements as long as they do not infringe on the rights of each student’s and their family’s share of the Federal education funds.
Introduction of Issues
As leader of the Yisrael Beitenu Party, Avigdor Lieberman has decided to use the leadership position to mount attacks upon the Haredi and religious Israelis. His complaint revolves around a set of complaints including that public transport be allowed to operate on the Sabbath; the recruitment law which requires every citizen, including all Haredi, serve in the IDF; and for all Yeshivot students and other Torah and religious oriented education students be required to attend regular general state education system which allows for their Torah and religious specific education on their own time. One can only but imagine what his next demand might be at some future critical points such as, well, cutting all public subsidizing of religious oriented schools which are not licensed as having certified general education systems and then Synagogues and on and on. Perhaps he would call for expanding on the court order demanding co-ed seating at a religious concert where the vast majority preferred separate seating and most others might feel some disappointment but worthwhile to hear the concert in Synagogues, the Western Wall and everywhere else where this practice of separation is currently enforced.
Avigdor Lieberman
Dear Avigdor Lieberman
Avigdor Lieberman, you have been moving inexorably leftward to such an extent that these claims of being conservative is starting to ring hollow. We understand that you support the IDF and this is commendable. But your rubbing elbows with the Blue White Party, a group which has stated their support for the Two State Solution paradigm with surrendering lands to provide the Palestinian Arabs their own state up to the, as Gantz stated very early in the campaign, Separation Barrier. You entered into vote sharing with the Blue White Party which completes cementing your leftward drift reaching a point well past center. Your claims, just as those of the four generals and Yair Lapid, that you support the right-wing and the Israelis living in the Shomron appear as valid as the claims of the average apparatchik spreading disinformation. Your demands of Netanyahu for your support in the April elections was not made with any degree of honesty. You knew that those demands would force the Haredi Parties out of the coalition leaving Bibi with about the same situation we are facing once more, the only government available would be a unity government with Blue White which would break-up the Likud Party with many of the religious and honest conservatives fleeing to the other right wing parties which stand stronger on these issues. Your antics will eventually lead to Jewish Home, National Union–Tkuma and New Right gaining in strength where they will be able to control the discussions and sooner or later take over some future, sooner rather than later, coalition. These are your positions and the items upon which you have decided to take your stand. One of your main complaints is that the secular population and non-Jews not be forced to lead a religious life by the state. Allow us to discuss this point even if it is but the smallest part of your crusade.
Your demands go far beyond freeing those who would rather not be put out by religious laws and be free to desecrate the Sabbath with the blessings of the law and the State. Instead, you would instead force by the law to reside in a secular state which would force their allowing vehicle traffic on their streets on Shabbat and that Torah education be pushed into the region of an elective such as after school clubs except with a heavy study load. You have left no room, by your own admission, and refused to allow for any compromise or middle ground. Maybe there can be some middle ground such as allowing each city, township, community and neighborhood be permitted to decide such laws concerning Shabbat and whether they preferred to observe the Sabbath. Also, perhaps a certain amount of secular education could be considered to be met by any Yeshivot and other Torah or religious oriented education, in order to receiver accreditation or certification which could make them more attractive to those who desire a balanced education. The schools which fail to meet the standards would not be shuttered and those which choose to remain with their current education system be permitted to do so. People could decide for themselves which educational opportunity they wish for their children. All that is needed is for more free choice and as broad a selection be allowed to be presented to the public. There has to be some happy medium by which both communities, religious and secular, be allowed to choose for themselves. As far as the draft issue, a real sticking-point for the past few governments, could be set allowing for a percentage of the Yeshivot and other Torah or religious oriented education systems be permitted deferments. The enlistment from the Haredi and religious communities has been rising over the past decade and is predicted to continue as their communities have been slowly moving towards what you would call normalization. Your stance that it is unfair that the secular public is forced to obey religious laws and your solution is for the religious community to live under secular laws, which often makes their lives impossible as they would prefer to live them. You are simply demanding that everything be done under your preference and who cares about those who have different views and desires.
First, please allow us to define “Competitive Education.” All Competitive Education entails is allowing there to be competition in educating our most precious asset, our children. Whenever this is suggested, big money from the Teachers’ Unions and Labor Unions in general start claiming that if we go away from general public education, then there would be no schools operating in the inner cities, the children will all receive subpar education, only the wealthy children will be permitted into the best schools and a myriad of false accusations and strawman arguments which a casual investigation would reveal their complete vacuity. The accusation that only the wealthy would receive a decent education is so absurd simply because the wealthy already are not sending their children to the public schools and are instead using Competitive Education in choosing in which of the elite academies they will educate their children. They often make their determination after a serious assessment of their child’s particular needs. If their child is rebellious, they might decide that a strict academy where they children wear uniforms and rules are strictly applied and if their child has a learning disability, they choose a school which is suited to such challenges and lastly, if their child shows a particular proclivity towards some subject or ability, they would choose appropriately. But the omniscient overlords of the public school system wish to deny to everyone who is not wealthy the exact same system which the wealthy are able to afford. What if instead of forcing everyone into the one size fits all and often-subpar education system provided by the government, after all, name something the government provides which has proved superior to the same service provided privately. We often immediately hear that law enforcement, and we agree that the level of protection provided by those dedicated individuals who choose to train and provide law enforcement are above the average, but we will also point out that the wealthy often have private patrols and other applications of security which augments, and in some gated communities replaces, publically provided law enforcement.
Allow us to make a few other potential areas where the identical argument about public education would apply and we would like to see how many would prefer the government take over these other areas of products, after all, education is a product in which we are given limited and too often no choice beyond the location where we reside to determine the educational level our children will receive. The first and most obvious would be grocery stores. After all, without the government providing our groceries, how do we know that just because we live in a poor neighborhood that we are not going to receive second or third rate food choices or no food choices? Would we not desire that the government provide grocery stores with government distributed groceries and government employees stocking the shelves and as cashiers and every other position right down to government run farms to assure the right measure of fertilizer is used and only approved pesticides which will not harm the environment and water rationed to prevent runoff and on and on. This was how food was grown, harvested and distributed in Soviet Russia as well as a number of other socialist nations such as Zimbabwe which had been the highest food producing country in Africa and when a new governance took over the entire economy and placed their own people to raise their crops and tend their herds and they became the least productive food producing country within a matter of three or four years, the length of time it took to replace all the existing farmers, or at least most of them. We already have heard that people want healthcare provided from the government. In our studies of such systems, we have found one which performs adequately and it does so by allowing competitive healthcare facilities and private hospitals and physicians and with the competition for members in the separate plans offered by these companies, quality remains quite high and prices remain relatively low. In the purely one size fits all nations there are prolonged wait times for surgical procedures, cancer treatment, diagnostic tests (the one place the system in our preferred nation could use an upgrade), permission to see a specialist, for physical therapy and so many other items and unlike our preferred nations where private practice is permitted as long as you also provide a set amount of your services in one of the plans, most of the socialized medical systems forbid private practices. What about socialized, government clothing? Everybody gets the same styles from which to choose. China had this at the start of the Mao Zedong rule and it was wonderful seeing all the happy people dressed identically. Let’s face it, there is nothing that the government does better than private providers, with the grave exception of military power, something which any sane people would never entrust to private companies as then the wealthy would have too much power.
School House
So, let us talk private schools and see what we can learn. First and foremost, there would be testing which would demand that students meet a minimal level of education in the necessities such as reading, writing, arithmetic, history, civics, sciences and even physical training for a level of fitness. The way these schools would be largely financed would be by having the monies currently spent on education divided by the numbers of students and the money would go to each school with each student. This would set a level of tuition which the most basic schools would charge with specialized schools potentially charging a higher tuition. Special needs education students would receive an additional amount divided from the current additional expenditures on a per student rate as the general education funds were divided. The general education schools could also provide specialization with the level required in the other subjects still requiring to be met. With private schools, the better schools would receive more students and be able to fill classroom sizes which could be regulated such that class sizes could not exceed a set figure, probably thirty or less as per regulations in each state. The states could be placed back as the primary sculptures of their school systems through their specific requirements. It would make sense for schools in central Nebraska to be more oriented to farming and such technologies while schools in the major cities would have less of an emphasis in these areas. Such decisions are best left to the individual states and counties, as they understand the requirements of their communities far better than would any bureaucrat in Washington D.C., where the current curriculums are mostly regulated. The testing regimens could be set at a level desired as minimal acceptable requirements from Washington D.C. but the specific requirements should be left to the individual states to determine any additional emphases. The better schools would survive and spread as their reputations spread and those whose level of proficiency was of a lesser quality would soon go out of business. Another advantage of such a system is that these schools would be answerable to the parents and far more approachable than the current public education systems which in many instances have virtually no means for parents to have any measurable influence. Teachers also would be rated individually and as such be more inclined to add to their education and become more qualified as well as staying up to date on the latest changes to their subject matter. We know that most of these reasons are an anathema to the teachers’ unions; who once a teacher gets tenure, they can coast along with no fear of being removed from their position. Further, the teachers’ unions in the majority of instances have become political influence peddlers and less education monitors. Their main interest is the continuation of schools as is and bigger salaries, less required class time, more specialized advisors, more counselors, administrative positions and a myriad of items with little if any influence on the level of education provided.
The argument is that schools would not be provided to remote regions such as low density farming communities or to many central areas in major cities where there are problematic reasons for low performance and other scare tactics. The city argument is ridiculous, as the students in these areas would take with them a premium fiscal incentive to provide education. This alone would be a great incentive as money talks. The arguments that in some areas the schools would choose not to admit troubled youths could be remediated by providing an additional scale for payment for schools taking any youth who had been expelled from another school. These children could be considered to be youths with special needs. Such schools should be given some additional leniency concerning their maintaining order in their classrooms. Further, an allowance might be made to have law enforcement officers stationed at these schools which would tend to blunt any precocious student deciding that they were permitted to have a violent outburst. Further, the schools would be responsible for student safety and in preventing the kind of incidents which have become all too common in schools. These incidents have occurred despite the availability of psychologists and other professionals placed in schools who are supposed to see such problems before they occur and not to provide the reasons why such events take place after the fact. With schools free to accept and expel, the environment in the classroom will become more conducive to learning, a major plus. One of the greatest problems in discipline was when because of costs, reform schools were dropped and new age approaches of placing discipline problem students into normal regimens in the claim that such an environment would prevent their acting out, and this was applied even to students who it was known had violent tendencies. Some schools may even provide special programs for just such students where a more regimented system where outbursts are not tolerated and other older tried and true methods applied to such students. Not everything is better just because it is a new approach; sometimes the old-school approach is more effective. Most difficulties would have applications which, as long as there is a need, there will be somebody to fill the niche, often at a price.
Schools could once more offer a series of hands-on job training giving student a skill which they could become licensed and qualified for apprenticeships or trade school certificate which would create graduates who could take any of the myriad of unfilled positions in what we derogatorily refer to as manual labor. There is nothing wrong with making a living using hands-on skills such as carpentry, plumbing, roofing, electronics repair or any of the many other skilled professions. We must refer to them as skilled professions and as an alternate route for those who choose to create actual physical objects which create the houses, malls and other structures or that repair medical equipment and other electronic items or even factory work with assembly, calibration and testing. Below is Dirty Jobs host Mike Rowe in a suit speaking at the Independent Women’s Forum where he was awarded the Gentleman of Distinction award speaking about the growing gap of jobs which need filling which do not require a college education and the burdensome debt which comes with it. We also can bet that when they make education free for everyone, these free educational opportunities will exclude the menial positions, the way the elites in the ivory towers refer to those of us who perform the jobs which keep their worlds running smoothly with plenty of items produced by people without a college education. The stigma placed on these honorable professions is really doing our children a disservice as instead of running up a debt to gain a degree a youth could apprentice in a profession or even go to Caterpillar’s free school too become a heavy equipment operator and where they will place you in a job near whatever city you desire. For the professionals out there with the six-figure incomes, a heavy equipment operator after four years on the job which includes the first year with Caterpillar will match your six-figure salary working near New York or other major metropolis.
Many parents argument for why they are unable to place their children into a private educational facility is cost. For those who claim that their children are their most precious darlings of their lives, to them we simply ask, are such darlings not worth a small outlay of funds beyond what the government provides for worthwhile to provide the best for them? With the government outlays per student now given to the child to take with them, the cost of that private school may just have come within the reach of many such a parent, and would that not be worthwhile for them to finally be able to place their children in the schools they desire? The answer to both questions should be a resounding, “yes,” and is another reason privatizing education is something whose time has come. What will happen to all those educators currently in the public school system? Well, they will be able to find jobs with these private schools which will start to appear almost like weeds once they know that the money is there. Competition will keep the prices in check and competition will provide the best teachers receiving the higher salaries. Can you imagine teachers being given raises commensurate with the results of the education they provide the children and the decorum they manage in their classes? Schools will retain their best teachers and slowly weed out those whose methods and results prove to be less than expected. Those who are back to thinking that private schools would be a horrific idea, would you also desire government grocery stores and government clothing stores along with your government education system. Education is a lot like the weather, so many people complain about it but nobody does anything about it. Maybe the time has come to try something different. As Einstein was reputed to have said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” The reality is that the United States had private education for much of its history and the argument for public education was made to provide every student with an equal education which followed the prescribed curriculum such that the workforce would have a standard upon which they could depend. Many of the current results from the government run schools lays lie to such result, as many school systems no longer provide equal education in their schools or even an adequate level of education. Colleges at all levels are finding that they are required to provide remedial education in the most basic subjects without credit for incoming students often adding another year to their time required to graduate. What does this tell you about the level of education the average student are receiving in government schools; perhaps we should try something else and see how it turns out. We would love to see a state decide to try private education taking whatever Federal money they receive and taking the money they provide and dividing it into a per student amount. They could even sell off their school buildings to any system and making sure that different systems are provided with these facilities thus increasing competition. If any state were permitted to try this as a test case and the bureaucrats in Washington D.C. could permit their control freak tendencies to go into remission just for one state, then that could be the test case and any problems addressed as they are encountered. Imagine if such a test were permitted in, oh let’s pick someplace which would represent the nation as a whole, how about Illinois as it has Chicago plus a fair number of decent sized and small metropolitan regions as well as some rural farming communities thus it just might make a representative test case. Would it be simply unthinkable to Americans to accept private education where they would actually have to make decisions as to their children’s education? They choose the food their children eat, the clothes they wear and almost every other aspect of their life, but education which should be amongst the most important items just has to be trusted to the government. That simply does not make sense and is completely counterintuitive.
Beyond the Cusp 