| The notion that local governments should have | | | | can and will foreclose on your home. |
| almost total monopoly control over our children's | | | | Also under this system, suppose the local Food Board |
| education is not only unjust and tyrannical, it is also | | | | forces you and your family to buy from a particular |
| absurd. Children need education, to be sure, but they | | | | store. The store clerks know you have to shop in |
| also need food, clothing, and shelter. The same poor | | | | their store, and that they can't be fired. As a result, |
| or irresponsible parents who public-school apologists | | | | they soon become indifferent to their customer's |
| claim will not educate their children without | | | | needs. The store managers can't be fired, so they |
| compulsion, might not feed, clothe, or shelter them | | | | manage the stores badly. The stores can't go out of |
| either. | | | | business because they are supported by taxes, so |
| Yet, we do not see local governments owning and | | | | they give you poor service and rotten food. If you |
| operating supermarkets, department stores, or | | | | want to change stores, you have to ask permission |
| apartment houses. Instead, government food stamp | | | | from your local Food Board bureaucrat, who will |
| or rent subsidy programs give temporary financial | | | | usually refuse your request. Also, changing food |
| help to those parents who are too poor to provide | | | | stores doesn't accomplish much because they are all |
| for their children. | | | | the same-all owned and operated by the same |
| When it comes to education, however, instead of | | | | government food monopoly. |
| giving vouchers or other temporary loans or subsidies | | | | If this system sounds absurd to you, if you would |
| to poor families so they can pay for their children's | | | | scream bloody murder at having to put up with such |
| education, we've created a | | | | a system simply to buy food, why do you put up |
| government-owned-and-operated monstrosity called | | | | with such a system when it comes to your children's' |
| public schools. As we noted earlier, millions of parents | | | | education? |
| now pay for private pre-schools, kindergartens, and | | | | Also, as we noted earlier, those we elect to office |
| colleges for their children in a vibrant, competitive, | | | | are our agents, not our masters. They derive their |
| education free-market. | | | | powers from our consent. They are supposed to |
| Most parents who can't afford college tuition for their | | | | represent our interests and follow our instructions. |
| kids usually apply for student loans either from a | | | | Politicians, bureaucrats, and school authorities |
| bank or a government agency. Yet for 1st through | | | | therefore have as much right to dictate how we |
| 12th-grade education, suddenly government must | | | | educate our children as a real estate agent has to |
| step in, treat all parents like idiots or potential child | | | | dictate who we sell our house to and at what price. |
| abusers, and own and operate all the schools. | | | | The following passage from Isabel Paterson's book, |
| To more fully understand the absurdity of this | | | | The God of the Machine, sums up the proper |
| system, imagine for a moment that well-intentioned | | | | response to local governments and school authorities |
| government authorities want to make sure that | | | | who think they have the right to dictate how you |
| every child has enough to eat, that no child gets "left | | | | educate your child: |
| behind" when it comes to food. To insure this goal, | | | | "The most vindictive resentment may be expected |
| local governments across the country take control of | | | | from the pedagogic profession for any suggestion |
| all supermarkets and grocery stores in your town. | | | | that they should be dislodged from their dictatorial |
| Under this new system, bureaucrats now own and | | | | position; it will be expressed mainly in epithets, such |
| operate all food stores, and store workers become | | | | as reactionary, at the mildest." |
| tenured civil-service employees who can't be fired. | | | | Nevertheless, the question to put to any teacher |
| Your local government then passes a new "food tax" | | | | moved to such indignation, is: Do you think nobody |
| to pay for these stores and employees' salaries. This | | | | would willingly entrust his children to you or pay you |
| tax is added to your current real-estate tax bill. If | | | | for teaching them? Why do you have to extort your |
| you don't pay this new tax, local government officials | | | | fees and collect your pupils by compulsion? |