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Compulsory education: how is it working for you?
Things have been a bit quiet around here lately, and so I thought I’d throw a provocative idea into the pot. This article takes educational freedom to the next level: giving parents not just the ability to spend their educational dollars freely, but also giving them the ability to decide whether or not to even send their kids to a school period.
We all take the necessity for and benefits of compulsory schooling laws for granted, without really thinking about it but, as the author points out, there are a number of downsides to compulsory schooling - not least of which is the reality of hundreds of thousands of kids who are inexorably forced to return, day after day, year after year, to continue the torture visited upon them by their failing schools. There are some other issues around compulsory schooling as well, and readers with an open mind are invited to read the whole article.
I am not necessarily convinced by these arguments, but they are ideas worth thinking about - not least the question of the extent to which the state should be allowed to dictate its citizens’ private actions.
I believe compulsory education, is used for the expressed purpose of having people being subservient to the best interests of the state. It cost big money when compulsory education is thrown into the mix, and where children and their parents are force to accept the offering of the public education who has the final say. It is certainly keeping the LD students in being seen as the low achievers of a school population. It certainly helps to carry on this misconception, when the LD children are not provided the correct and most effective reading, writing and numeracy instruction. There is indeed a small army that grows inside the school boards, just to administrate and label this particular subgroup of students.
Throughout the years with my youngest, I have kept receiving this message, since I was asking for services from the education system. It was different with my other children, because my child needed no other service beyond the desk in the classroom and a teacher in front. It was not until I asked for services that went beyond the classroom, I started to received that message that the State triumphs the individual, in so many ways.
” Regulations that mandate the character of instruction only serve to silence demand and prevent entrepreneurship and innovation. It is impossible to know the shape and scope of programs that would come into existence otherwise; churches, civic organizations, and entrepreneurs should be permitted to innovate freely.”
It certainly silenced me, and it made me fearful when I did raise my voice, of the repercussions that might be coming my way from the displeasure of the educrats. So, I picked my battles carefully, because I knew they held the bigger stick, the authority, the laws, and the regulations behind them. All I had was myself, and the determination to have my child to become fair to good in reading, writing and numeracy. At least I knew that they were not on my side, looking out for the best interests of my child.
It is why I think choice will be rammed down the collective throats of the public education system, because of the unwieldy rules and regulations that have more to do with control, than the best interests of educating children. And the costs are adding up.
“Parents would have more freedom in determining how their children are educated, entrepreneurs and philanthropists would create education models never previously imagined, private schools and homeschools would be freed of tiresome regulations, public schools would lose their de facto monopolies and competition for children would force them to improve, and the burden for neglected children would be placed on community and religious organizations instead of public schools.”