When I watch student protests in Portugal or Illinois and I see them chanting against basic math and basic economics, it makes me realize what a huge impact the education system has had on their thought processes. The issues at play aren't difficult to understand. In a free society, businesses have the ability to flee tax and regulatory oppression. Social spending comes from profits. You can't lower profits and raise social spending without ending up insolvent and bankrupt, yet our students can't grasp this simple concept.
Seriously, think about that for a minute. Here are the equations involved:
Profits * Tax Rate + Borrowing = Government SpendingThat's it. That's all there is. If you raise taxes and increase regulation, profitable people and businesses may leave. If you borrow money to pay for social programs, your debt-servicing costs will crowd out the programs you want to support. How is it possible that after a decade or so of "education" our students can't comprehend those two simple equations?
Government Spending = Government Programs + Debt Servicing Costs
I'm not a big fan of bashing the education industry. I'd argue that poor test results and low graduation rates are more the result of the breakdown of traditional morality and the nuclear family than poor teaching. This one, however, is completely the fault of the education establishment. These people are flat-out morons when it comes to the trivially simple equations that govern spending. The students taught by these idiots go on to vote, leading to forehead-smackingly stupid results like those in Illinois. At least if parents could use vouchers to send their kids to private schools, they might learn basic economic math from someone other than the brain-dead progressives in the NEA.
5 comments:
"test results and low graduation rates are more the result of the breakdown of traditional morality and the nuclear family than poor teaching."
Correct as far as it goes, but you can't stop there. 90% of the American education system is a Socialist enterprise. Public provision of a private good combined with top down command control (thank you Kevin Williams). The education industry long ago stole the moral indoctrination of children from parents. This was not an abdication by parents. It was a nanny knows best policy instituted and operated under force of law. I see no reason to let them off the hook for the results of their actions.
Boyd, you make a great point, but I think that those mechanisms can be overcome fairly easily and quickly once we admit the source of the problem. Two parent households simply have more money and labor to commit to the raising of children.
"Two parent households simply have more money and labor to commit to the raising of children."
Quite true. I guess that is why your premise of the post is so important. Vouchers enable even poor parents to join the well off in breaking this system of institutionalized intellectual poverty.
Thanks!
Everyday just reinforces that our decision was right 12 years ago to send our kids to private school.
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