by Jared Chamberlain

Created on: March 24, 2009

The discussion on this topic is long overdue. Public schools have come a long way since their inception in the mid 1800's. They used to be small, community-oriented school houses that operated on small budgets and used common sense principles of education. Since then, they have become large, underperfoming, and often poverty-stricken institutions that can barely teach a child how to read, let alone how to become a productive, educated citizen. The dropout rates are astounding and the government bureaucracy that controls them is abhorrent.

The most recent example of this comes from a school in South Carolina, where a student has written a letter to President Barack Obama asking that money from the government stimulus bill be sent to the school for new paint on walls where the paint is peeling off. Students, parents, and entire school districts are resorting to this type of begging like never before. Of course, it is only the government who can supply a can of paint for the walls at school, you know. What happened to the old-fashioned American way of doing it yourself? What is stopping that student or a teacher or parent or principal from going to the local hardware store, buying a five dollar can of paint and doing it themselves? Do you have any idea how much that can of paint costs once it changes hands a thousand times during its journey from the president, through all the bureaucracy, and finally to the school? I wouldn't be surprised if the school district was also forced to hire union labor to paint the walls. That one can of paint and a couple of hours after school could do a lot more good than petitioning the federal government to take care of the problem.

I say the best way to improve public schools is to remove government from the equation. That means no more No Child Left Behind, no more federal and state intervention in the local education of children. If parents want to send their children to public schools, it should be the community that supports the school and the community that controls how much money is spent on what types of items and activities. This may mean no more snack vending machines or coffee bars. Maybe students will have to pay for athletic equipment. Maybe parents will send lunch to school with their kids instead of having to pay a full service cafeteria. Maybe 2nd graders don't need a corporate-sized wi-fi network. Send them outside to study leaves and worms instead. Are we still aloud to do that or will someone sue if their child gets dirt in their eyes? Maybe tax dollars shouldn't be spent to force the state-mandated and unproven theories of evolution and global warming down our children's throats. Maybe we should stop spending money on "tolerance" education and telling our impressionable little ones that it's ok to have two daddies. On top of disgusting immorality, do you have any idea of the financial cost of implementing this government education? I would guestimate somewhere in the hundreds of milliions to billions range.

For the sake of our children and the future of our towns and our country, it is time to hand over the cost and implementation of education back to the parents and teachers that are intimately involved in the everyday lives of the students.

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