Post by ShivaTD on Oct 26, 2013 15:31:39 GMT
I addressed the GOP Platform Plank on Heath Care and next I want to address their plank on Education.
We believe that maintaining a world-class system of primary and secondary education with high standards in which all students can reach their potential is critically important to America’s future. We believe parents should be empowered to send their children to the school of their choice.
www.gop.com/our-party/
Sounds good. I agree that we need a world-class system of primary and secondary education. Overwhelmingly Education is a responsibility of the States and should, except in possibly rare cases, should be funded by the State. It makes no sense for the federal government to tax the people of a State and send that money directly back to the same State. When that occurs the State should just collect the taxes to pay for 100% of its own expenditures and cut out the middleman.
I could understand that a few States might require some financial assistance because of economic hard times within the state limiting revenue and in those rare cases I could see minimal federal assistance to them but the idea that all 50 states require this is simply absurd. At best federal aid to education should be an exception addressing an exceptional financial situation of the State.
I also agree that parents should be empowered to send their children to other schools. If there is a better school in their district then if the parents want to assume the responsibility of getting their child to that school and bringing them home they should be allowed to do that. Obviously there could be some limitations because of the class size becomes too large then the education suffers anyway but that is a pragmatic limitation and if the school is funded based upon headcount of the students this shouldn't be a problem.
If the parents choose to send their children to private schools there is nothing preventing them from doing that. The taxpayers should not pay for this choice though because the taxpayers shouldn't be subsidizing the personal preferences of parents. Tax revenues should be used to improve publically funded institutions and not private institutions.
Remember there is a difference between "empowerment" and a government subsidy that ultimately results in corporate welfare (i.e. a private school receiving fund derived from the government is accepting corporate welfare even when the parents play "middleman" to the transaction).
Comments?