Friday, January 13, 2006

Stupid America

I'll be tuning into John Stossel's latest work called "Stupid in America" airing this evening on ABC.

There's an overview by Stossel at Reason Magazine. Most of us have heard much of this before. I'm sure it will ruffle plenty of feathers and that makes for good television. But what I really hope is that more folks realize that this monoply must end.

"This should come as no surprise once you remember that public education in the USA is a government monopoly. Don't like your public school? Tough. The school is terrible? Tough. Your taxes fund that school regardless of whether it's good or bad. That's why government monopolies routinely fail their customers. Union-dominated monopolies are even worse."
Metro Nashville is debating whether to have year round school, as are other communities across the nation. Go ahead, rearrange the deck chairs. It won't really do much good though. It's window dressing at best. Until parents are given real freedom to move their children to a school that suits the child the best, we won't see any real improvement. Our recent magnet lottery had 3 students apply for every slot--what more evidence do we need that parents and students want more of those sorts of options? WHY can't they have them?


1 comment:

Kay Brooks said...

Whew, I was scared for a minute that Marion Barry was still mayor and wondered if he was sober when he commented. He's NO longer the mayor...

"This report confirms what I've been saying for years: A well-designed, federally funded school choice program can have a huge impact on the lives of low-income schoolchildren," said Mayor Anthony A. Williams, a Democrat who backs the vouchers.

And Milwaukee and Cincinnati (both heavily Democratic towns with large black populations are HUGE supporters of charters and vouchers.

Re: the federally funded part...are DC schools entirely federally funded? 'Cause I really think funding (and oversight actually) should be local and wonder if he said 'federal' cause that's where their money comes from.