Some people believe they have the obligation to take some of your income to create state-run institutions to educate children in a manner chosen by well-meaning government committees. They also insist you send your children to these institutions, regardless of quality, unless you have the financial means to pay for your own choices in addition to supporting the state-created institutions by paying property taxes.

These people use the power of law to enforce the choices they make on your behalf. They use the court system to extract money from your checkbook when they decide their institutions need additional funds, and you have not been generous enough.

And most of the people who practice this coercion call themselves liberals. This is an oxymoron to be sure. A liberal in the classical sense would not presume that his or her choices in educational matters should be forced on everyone else.

But these self-described liberals would have little power were it not for many well-off suburban Republicans.  These people understand how important it is to educate children. They have the financial means to make alternative educational choices for their own children, but they do not want to leave everyone else’s children behind. So, lacking a ready-made alternative, they support the current institutional system. Besides, who wants to be persona non grata at community functions where “everybody” publicly supports local schools and their levies.

I understand this. I sympathize. 

But not at the expense of millions of American children who are the losers because we refuse to make courageous and correct decisions on their behalf. Not at the expense of maintaining our constitutional republic and our free enterprise system.

When it comes to children and education, our aim should not be to reform our existing education system to better meet the needs of students. Our singular focus ought to be to see to it that children have the best educational opportunities possible. Period!

The 2007 [Washington State] Legislature targeted more money toward K-12 education: $900 million more. They now allocate $11,400 tax dollars to each student, each year. That’s a lot of money, but it’s not enough for the education establishment. They are suing for more. How much more, they can’t say. Just more.  What would happen if that $11,400 could be spent in an education marketplace?

Education research and development would explode.  That likely would lead to smaller and more personalized education centers. The length of the school year and day would change. Exclusive age grouping would be a relic.  For some students, distance learning would be integrated naturally into their education plan. 

Teacher quality would increase. Outstanding teacher candidates would be wooed into education. Good pay and professional satisfaction would keep them there. Poor teachers would soon choose a different career path. 

Schools that produce excellence would be duplicated quickly. Mediocre schools would struggle to survive. Poor schools would die.  The people who should be responsible for seeing to it their children receive a good education would be back in the driver’s seat, where they belong.

Our fixation with particular test scores would diminish as the results would be evident in the quality of students produced. 

Furthermore, as Andrew Coulson writes in his great book Market Education, “Battles over sex education, condom distribution, religious instruction, the celebration of religious holidays, the interpretation of history, public-service graduation requirements, outcomes-based education, etc. would all become unnecessary under a free market, as each family could choose the educational services most conducive to its own needs and beliefs.” 

In almost every other area of life, sensible people seem to understand the importance of markets to create quality at a good price. We bristle at the notion that we should pay more money for a product of lesser quality.  That’s true, except in a few very important arenas, like education. 

It’s lousy to get a lemon of a car, but it’s worse to get a lemon of an education. The market will punish manufacturers of lemon-like vehicles. There’s no marketplace to punish or reward education institutions.  What made us think this would ever work in the long run? 

In 1818, Englishman William Cobbett wrote to his countrymen, “There are very few really ignorant men in America….They have all been readers from their youth up.” (emphasis is Cobbett’s) To our shame, we cannot say that today. How many kids do we graduate from high school who can’t read, or even figure out a bus schedule?

We humans have the marvelous gifts of being able to reason and appreciate beauty. Furthermore, deep inside us, we all know that truth and wisdom exist, though it’s true that we will see it differently. The aim of education is to give students the tools to find and use wisdom and truth. Failure to do this creates generations of angry, purposeless, empty-headed hedonists. How long can our country survive hordes of citizens who live in intellectual and moral futility? 

Regardless of sentiments, good intentions and some very fine people in its midst, the current institutional structure of delivering K-12 education to our children is doomed to failure. It will fail on its own structural and economic demerits. We ought to hasten that day and put in its place a true public system that celebrates options and personal responsibility.

In the meantime, let us not believe that there’s anything liberal, in the classical sense, about government-run and designed educational institutions. As one of my colleagues likes to say, “The new liberals are really the old fascists.” They will tell us what to do and we will do it. 

The next time you go to the mall, I challenge you to look into the faces of the young people milling around there. Listen to their conversations. Ask them about their life plans. Then I challenge you to do more than shake your head in despair or sorrow. We’re supposed to be the guardians of their future. We need to take that job more seriously beginning right now.

Lynn Harsh is Chief Executive Officer of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation (EFFWA), located in Washington state.  Its mission is to advance individual liberty, free enterprise, and limited and accountable government.  Like the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, EFFWA is a member of State Policy Network.  This article was originally published as a “Letter from Lynn” in the September 2007 edition of Living Liberty and is reprinted with permission.