The Consistent Failure of Socialized Education in America.

We seem to be having a national discussion these days about the role of government. What is the purpose of government? What should it do, what should it not do? How huge should it be? To me, it seems that many people feel that Government should run everything. I beg to differ.

Has anyone been to the local DMV lately? Social Security Office? Veterans Affairs?

I only want to cover one point today, and indeed, this is a huge subject, trying to understand what role government should have in society. I will be writing much more about this. But for now, let’s take restaurants. Show of hands, how many of you want every restaurant in the country run by the government? All the fast food places, Taco Bell, Burger King, McDonalds, Arbys, Subway, as well as every sit down establishment in all of the county. Let’s use Broward county as an example, in South Florida. There are, at last count, 17 million 212 restaurants in the county, or so it seems. Take all the Italian, Cuban-American, Chinese, Steakhouses, every single place that serves food, and let’s say they are all one county food system. Government restaurants. Government employees. Supervised by a County Restaurant Board. What would happen?

Well, you would immediately eliminate competition. Without any competition, you would eliminate innovation. No new hamburgers, no double layered light up pizzas, no nothing. Same old same old. Competition is the fuel that drives innovation.

Eventually, the appearance of the fast food and other restaurants would deteriorate. Again, why have fancy landscaping, beautiful tile and good cloth napkins when there isn’t any reason to do so? Eventually, every establishment will be government concrete gray.

Customer service? From the government? Non-existent. That isn’t even something an ultra liberal can debate.

Food quality? Well, who inspects the government restaurants? The government. I rest my case. And since the government buys things through a lowest bidder system, well, imagine that applied to your fish and chips.

Bottom line is that eventually, the County Restaurant System will turn every eatery into a government concrete gray place with inept and uncaring government employees and a plain menu using low quality food. In other words, they will turn them into K-12 government schools.

Oh, one more thing – the government will assign you to your restaurants. You cannot visit any other restaurant, other than what the government decides for you. If the quality sucks, too bad. If you get sick eating there, too bad.

Of course, the county government does not run the restaurants. They regulate them, along with the State and certainly some Federal help. They inspect the establishments for food quality and healthy cooking/eating conditions. Some arm of the government regulates the maximum number of people who can sit in a place, and they regulate wages and employee working conditions and even the light bulbs. And you know what? The government does a not so crappy job at regulating the restaurants. They can close an establishment if the food quality gets too bad.

So, I ask you now….why do we have government K-12 schools? Government schools with government employees grading themselves and the only thing remotely resembling innovation that has come up, in Florida anyway, is the FCAT test. Universally, Liberals, Conservatives and free thinkers complain about the quality of our educational system. For decades and decades we have tossed billions of dollars at the government schools, and the quality has only deteriorated. Our high school graduates can barely identify the continent of North America on a globe. (Some can’t even identify the globe!)

I work at a college. I deal with students. Those from public schools are dumb as a sack of weasel bladders. Those from private schools or home schoolers can write, read and calculate rings around the public school students. But who can afford to send their kids to expensive private schools? You can. If we dismantled the government monopoly on schools, and fed just half the money to private schools through the students. Just like private colleges work today. The government doesn’t give money directly to the private universities. They give the money to the students, who bring it to their college of choice. Freedom of choice. Not forced education to a school of the government’s choices. Private colleges compete. And those that don’t compete well, close. The same can be done for K-12. In fact, we can do it a hell of a lot cheaper. With the government doing what they don’t do too crappy – regulate. They regulate private colleges. They can regulate K-12 schools.

Government isn’t all that bad on regulating. They suck at doing though.

We have doubled the money we spend on k-12 education yet, it still sucks.  President Bush tossed tons of money through “No Child Left Behind”. Now President Obama wants to toss billions more at government schools. We’ve tossed money at these government schools for decades and decades and decades, and they continue to get worse and worse and worse.  Why can’t Americans figure out that the problem isn’t a lack of funds, it is the system? Oh wait, I know, most Americans were educated in government schools….

I encourage every one of my readers to read this article from ABC News. It says everything I wanted to say, but much better and with facts.

It is time we stop this experiment in socialized education. It has failed us consistently year after year, decade after decade.

SCG