A Slippery Slope of Education Regulation

Much has been said about the United States’ poor education system in international rankings and the ridiculous cost of college tuition. Now, the Department of Education is at it again, this time unveiling new guidelines for states to receive a total of $500 million to reform preschools.

Although Secretary of Education Arne Duncan swears we will not see 3-year olds filling in bubbles for standardized tests, there will be, “more observations necessary to evaluate programs and students and to improve instruction.” In other words, one way or another, the federal government will soon be playing a larger role in a preschool near you.

What concerns me most about this new initiative is that it will open the door to a slippery slope in which the government begins to raise a child more than the parents do. The White House website has already cited a statistic saying only 40% of 4-year olds are enrolled in preschool. If they are drawing attention to this now, it may only be a matter of years until preschool, or even earlier childhood education, is mandatory.

The Teaching Elites Have Spoken

Even with extensive government involvement in the education sector, the spontaneous order of the marketplace has given private sector alternatives to education such as Khan Academy somewhat of a chance to compete with the current public education monopoly.

Andrew J. Coulson, director of the Cato Institute's Center for Educational Freedom,  is able to point out a damning quote from a feature story in Wired that vividly illustrates the culture of mediocrity instilled by public education:

Even if Khan is truly liberating students to advance at their own pace, it's not clear that the schools will be able to cope. The very concept of grade levels implies groups of students moving along together at an even pace. So what happens when, using Khan Academy, you wind up with a kid in fifth grade who has mastered high school trigonometry and physics-but is still functioning like a regular 10-year-old when it comes to writing, history, and social studies? Khan's programmer, Ben Kamens, has heard from teachers who've seen Khan Academy presentations and loved the idea but wondered whether they could modify it "to stop students from becoming this advanced." 

Education is important. That’s why the government shouldn’t play teacher.

Here's en excerpt from a post I recently wrote on my own blog:

Q. What do you make of the Rawlsian idea of “effective freedom”? If I break my leg and am lying in the gutter with no resources to help myself how am I free? If the state is to tax, shouldn’t health and education be the primary services it owes its citizens as a result of the imposition? Protection of property rights might be the sole concern of the ‘night watchman’ state, but, you know, respect for property rights is free, and I would say an excellent side effect of good education. — ninefruits, from tumblr.

A. I’ve read Rawls, though it’s been a while and his ideas are hardly fresh in my mind.  At any rate, I’ll go question by question:

What do you make of the Rawlsian idea of “effective freedom”? If I break my leg and am lying in the gutter with no resources to help myself how am I free?

How are you not free?  No person is restraining you, and that’s what it is the responsibility of government to stop.  (Of course, if someone or their property has broken your leg and put you in the gutter, that is quite a different story.  But I’m assuming you just tripped over a…wild bird or something which could not possibly be a human crime.)  Basically, this confuses positive rights with freedom, and they are two very different things.

School Voucher Program Could "Wipe out" CA's Deficit

From the California Independent Voter Network:

What if California could fix its enormous budget deficit with a single policy change that would potentially cut billions out of the state budget without sacrificing the quality of services that Californians receive?

What if five years from now, without any reductions in the quality of health, housing, education, law enforcement, human services, or transportation- California was actually running a budget surplus?

As the Legislature misses yet another Constitutionally-mandated spending deadline today, the Los Angeles Times reports that both gubernatorial candidates have little more than criticism to offer:

But neither gubernatorial nominee has stepped forward with anything that resembles a roadmap to closing the state's $19.1-billion deficit. No strategy for bringing the state into the black nor a detailed plan of what social programs need to be dismantled, parks need to be closed or school programs need to be eliminated has come out of either campaign.