PEL (Public Education Limited)

I am a product of America's public education system.
I consider myself above average in intelligence.
These two facts are mutually exclusive.
The father of American public education is Horace Mann. It's interesting to note that the two websites I went to find information about Mann were either rife with spelling and grammatical errors or were completely disorganized and made no sense. Mann's wikipedia article, for instance, has been edited in such a way as to look like the person who did it was, in fact, a product of American public schools. Check it out. Mann believed that public education would, inside of a generation or two, eliminate poverty an 90% of all crime, especially violent crimes. Good call, Horace.
But the fundamental issue about public education has nothing to do with the test scores(they're horrendous) or the amount of money we spend on education($10,000 per pupil). The fundamental issue is whether forcing our children to attend government-run educational institutions is such a good idea. There was a time when Americans held a healthy scepticism for the government. Now we hold utter disdain for it while accepting all of its institutions. Get rid of Social Security? But what of the elderly? Remove the safety net of food stamps? But what of the poor, especially children?
And public education is the holy grail of all government institutions. It is simply untouchable. Complain that teachers are unworthy of raises and you get shouted down and laughed at—although $46,000 a year for a nine month job sounds pretty good for people who are failing our children.
Public education is, at best, an opportunity for the government, and, at its worst, a complete failure of those it is supposed to help. Public education has done more to keep poor people poor than all of the other social programs. Public education does nothing more than provide a platform for social welfare advocates as well as providing ample excuses for their failures. They say that they need more money, even though a parochial school education would cost less than a third as much as a public one, and deliver better results. They say they need more parental involvement, but when parents complain about money and quality, they are reminded of all of the hardships public teachers face. regardless of the fact that the educational system in this country has created those problems. Violence and discipline problems do not occur in private schools, because students know that they won't last if they do. An parents know it, too.
The only solution is a complete abolition of the public school system. But that will not happen any time soon, so we must take baby steps.
School vouchers have been around for many decades but the teachers' union has fought them tooth and nail. Not to protect the quality of education, as they say, but—as Mel Brooks put it—to save their "phony baloney jobs." Vouchers work, and they are a great idea. I do not care what the numbers say. The voucher program does one thing that is a fundamental right for all parents and their children. It gives them the choice of who educates their children. Is anything else important?