Welcome to the new Young Americans for Liberty! Learn about the new features or give us your feedback!

The Problem(s) with Public Education

Bonnie Kristian
May 6, 2009 at 4:48 AM
By Bonnie Kristian

From James Howard Kunstler's "Eyesore of the Month" comes this gem:

Behold this brand new school in Las Vegas, Nevada: Hannibal Lecter Elementary. Is every child in this city a serial killer requiring maximum security incarceration during school hours? Golly, what happens when they let them out at three o'clock?

This institutional monstrosity alone should be enough reason not to support public education, but if you'd like a more detailed discussion, check out Andrew Young and Walter Block's article, "Enterprising Education: Doing Away with the Public School System." They address three major arguments I often hear in favor of public education:

  1. It is a necessary aspect of democracy and, paradoxically, the citizenry must be taxed for that system to secure their own freedom.
  2. The market would not provide an equal opportunity for and quality of primary education to everyone.
  3. Education is an example of an external economy; market provision would therefore be under optimal.
All three objections are ably answered by Young and Block here.
Posted in:
  • Blog Policy
  • Login or register to post comments
The book A Thomas Jefferson Education by Oliver DeMille is a great read on the purpose of different systems of education. And yes, public school has it's place
's picture
Submitted by Hillshum (not verified) on May 6, 2009.
I study architecture. It looks like a post-modern, or hyper-modernist design where the architect was trying to make some formal statement of simple and pure geometrical shapes, or perhaps a statement on schooling that was approved by the school board. Public school just plainly pisses me off. I've always wanted to rant about how the California government (and National Organizations) want to control the practice of architecture, and indoctrinate all the students to agree with the same "way of thinking" about how to design. The government control of schooling trickles down to the professors, even in a design profession, in which an authority declares which style of architecture is right, as they have the authority to declare who passes which class with what kind of letter grade. Disagreeing with their "style of education" gets you a failing grade - and keeping you from getting a license in architecture.
's picture
Submitted by Justin Page Wood (not verified) on May 6, 2009.
Just to note -- I'm hardly against modern, or even, in some cases, postmodern architecture -- far to the contrary; I tend to prefer it. It's just the windowless, gray, prison-like aspect of that particular work which bothers me. Its design is so antithetical to its purpose, a disfunctionality which in turn reminded me of the problems with public school in general.
Bonnie Kristian's picture
Submitted by Bonnie Kristian on May 6, 2009.