This commentary is by Jay Eshelman of Westminster, a business owner and a former Work Force Investment Board and River Valley Technical Center board member.
From John McClaughry’s commentary, “The teachers union’s new pupil indoctrination plan”: “Independent schools that offer a more balanced curriculum, including curricula built upon moral and religious values, will attract empowered parents and children. Public schools that lose pupils because of radical indoctrination will seek to regain their market share (and lost union dues) by making their offerings more appealing.”
This is a clear and concise explanation of why school choice is good for everyone — except, perhaps, those who foist their incompetence on society under the guise of “academic authoritarianism.”
What is academic authoritarianism? It is the public-school monopoly, the single most egregious offender of the U. S. antitrust laws prohibiting various organizations from unreasonably depriving consumers of the benefits of competition.
Public achools haven’t really changed in over 150 years, since Horace Mann first promoted them in the mid-19th century. Yes, we’ve seen “new math” and “whole language,” the pedagogic pillow-arranging primarily designed to attract new grant money — programs that have done little to improve student academic performance or lower education costs. If anything, these new pedagogies made education worse and more expensive.
And it’s not just the academic nonsense we’re forced to endure. Just consider the recent Act 46 school merger administrative fiasco. Does anyone see the tangible benefits? Improved test scores? Lower costs? No! Instead, we’re now being told that test scores aren’t relevant and spending more money is the only cure for what ails us. Again, it’s all nonsense — protected and perpetrated by the public-school monopoly.
When I moved to Vermont 45 years ago, my phone was on a party line. Five years later, the Ma Bell monopoly was broken up and today we have phones more capable than the NASA computers used to send Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the moon.
John McClaughry is spot on. Just imagine what an educational free market can do for our children, our society, and our pocketbooks. School choice tuition vouchers made available to all Vermont parents will lead the way to our education freedom and the success that liberty brings to us all.
