Education: The Silver Bullet

Health Care, Wars, Bailouts, strip clubs (ask your party chairs), etc. It seems like these days politicians see fit to pour our tax dollars into all of the above. Unfortunately they haven’t seen fit to look at responsibly investing in the one area that could prevent all of the above from being issues in the future. In recent years education has seemed to become the forgotten issue for politicians, and personally I think it’s a crying shame.

For starters one would think that education would be the silver bullet for politicians hoping to tout an issue that could solve America’s woes. Instead it’s a campaign season throw in at the end of town hall forums that gets forgotten once the votes are counted. Just ask President Obama. During his run for President whenever then Senator Obama was asked to name an issue where he would work with Republicans he pointed to the need for states to institute school voucher programs. Now, as President, Obama has failed to utter any high profile remarks on education aside from the highly anticipated yet unsubstantial speech to America’s public school students. And of the few words on education, where have vouchers fallen on the President’s political radar? Nowhere.

In Obama’s defense the nations Republicans haven’t come to the table on education either whether it is for vouchers or other issues. It’s interesting that they haven’t. Why would a party looking to regain power not seek to address the need to educate our nation’s children, especially when many of the nation’s voters are the parents of young school children who fear those children’s futures in a struggling country? Republicans and Democrats are both clearly either out of touch or ignorant when it comes to education.

So that’s my rant on the ignorance of our major political parties, now for what we should do about education. Since we’ve discussed vouchers let’s start there. Vouchers are essentially checks that the government (state, local, etc) write to pay private school bills for parents who don’t wish to send their children to public schools. In many cases vouchers work, and I consider them a key to the puzzle of fixing education in the U.S. If a local education system is spending more per student then it would cost to send a child to a private school, why not just write the check to let them do it? Of course it would be bad to send all students off to private schools, however if a parent chooses to move their child then there is no reason the government shouldn’t go along; especially if it cuts costs. Vouchers also add choice. If they can give parents more options then I’m behind them.

All of that said while vouchers are good it should be governments aim to make sure the best choice is the public school. If loads of parents want vouchers then clearly there is a problem with our public schools. This problem is particularly serious when our federal government is dumping hundreds of billions of dollars into Universal Health Care. Congress and the President are basically saying don’t worry about getting an education because we’re going to cover everything you need in life anyways. It just doesn’t seem very American to me. If children have a strong education then they’re going to find jobs and be able to afford their own health care. If jobs are low a well educated populace will take on the American entrepreneurial spirit and create new ones. If wars and the debt continue to be big problems then an educated populace will know how to vote to ensure that they won’t be any more (maybe that’s why politicians hate education).

My biggest problem with the socialized medicine bill that just passed Congress is that the money could have been spent in far, far better ways to fix our education system. Many of those billions of dollars could have built more schools. Actually that’s not a maybe, it’s a fact. Why couldn’t the health care funding have been spent to build the 30 best schools in the world? Schools should be our temples for learning yet when you walk into most public high schools these days you find graffiti, broken windows and students who don’t know 1 + 1 = 2. For the most powerful country in the world it’s pretty pathetic. Looking back at history societies like Greece and Rome flourished with strong education, yet when schools failed and poverty grew the great societies fell fast. Our education system should be the pride of our nation and while I’m dead set against government expansion I’m willing to grant exceptions to education, because if it is strengthened then a new and intelligent generation will come along to ensure the bright future of our Republic.

All this said I’m not saying the federal government has the money for education reform. In fact it doesn’t because it just dumped it all on health care and bad banks that should have been allowed to fail. I am saying, however, that government could do no wrong by stepping back and getting its priorities straight. Banks wouldn’t fail as often if Americans started learning in 5th grade how to invest their money. Our government needs to stop spending money but when we do spend it the focus should be investment in the future not bailing out the present.

I’m also not saying the federal government should set curriculum because it shouldn’t. States and local governments are our laboratories of democracy and with that in mind they should all devise their own systems for teaching. Whatever the federal government does it should never move the actual teaching away from local government where it is close to the parents whose children’s futures are at stake.

What I am saying is that education needs saving. And on the same note a saved education system could save our country. Let’s at least get a free flowing dialogue on education going in this country. The debate alone could refresh this countries state of mind.