As the son of a union activist and a lifelong Democrat, I've always thought that privatizing our public schools is not the answer. We must strengthen public schools.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
As more government functions are privatized, we find political leaders defunding the public school system, shifting government funds to the private, for-profit school industry.
America's public schools have served their purpose. Free and compulsory education was good for a somewhat unpromising young nation.
Instead of unfairly demonizing teachers, we should be working with them to find solutions to the problems in our schools and make sure every child gets an outstanding public education.
There's no silver bullet when it comes to helping all children achieve. Great public schools are our best shot.
School reform is not enough. The notion of schooling itself must be challenged.
Public schooling fosters our common identity as Americans sharing a land of diversity. It promotes the American ideal of opportunity for all, not just some. It cultivates the civic values of respecting individuals as well as collective responsibility.
If all the rich and all of the church people should send their children to the public schools they would feel bound to concentrate their money on improving these schools until they met the highest ideals.
If we allow public funds to be used to support our relatively benign, morally grounded schools, we will have to allow those public funds to be used for any type of private school.
Public education is our greatest pathway to opportunity in America. So we need to invest in and strengthen our public universities today, and for generations to come.
If you're going to have a public subsidy to education, vouchers are clearly a better way of delivering it. They should result in some loosening up and privatization of the government school system.