End All Government Involvement in Education
Submitted by CARPE DIEM
Prayers in school, sex education and “intelligent design” are contentious school issues. I believe parents should have the right to decide whether their children will say a morning prayer in school, be taught “intelligent design” and not be given school-based sex education. I also believe other parents should have the right not to have their children exposed to prayers in school, “intelligent design” and receive sex education.
The reason why these issues produce conflict is because education is government-produced. That means there’s either going to be prayers or no prayers, “intelligent design” or no “intelligent design” and sex education or no sex education. If one parent has his wishes met, it comes at the expense of another parent’s wishes. The losing parent either must grin and bear it or send his child to a private school, pay its tuition and still pay property taxes for a school for which he has no use.
The solution is to take the production of education out of the political arena. The best way is to end all government involvement in education. Failing to get government completely out of education, we should recognize that because government finances something it doesn’t follow that government must produce it. Government finances F-22 Raptor fighter jets, but there’s no government factory producing them. The same could be done in education. We could finance education collectively through tuition tax credits or educational vouchers, but allow parents to choose, much like we did with the GI Bill. Government financed the education, but the veterans chose the school.
~From George Mason economist Walter Williams’ latest column
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