Thanks for being there, Chris. It's so frustrating that our laws are being written by this group that is supported by billionaires. And since Vukmir is going to be leading them, it is a conflict of interest for her to also be in the Wisconsin senate. She should resign her seat.
Milton Friedman's thinking on educational choice evolved between 1955 and 2005. Friedman originally accepted the "public goods" argument for State (government, generally) subsidization of education. He makes that case in his contribution to Solo's __Economics and the Public Interest__, where he wrote "(e)ducation is today largely paid for and almost entirely administered by governmental bodies or non-profit institutions". In __Capitalism and Freedom__, he replaced "education" in the above with "schooling". Later, in a __Reason__ interview he said that the work of Edwin West convinced him that tax subsidization of education was unnecessary. By the time he wrote his contributions to the Cato collection __Liberty and Learning: Milton Friedman's Voucher Idea at Fifty__ he clearly saw school choice as a stepping stone to more general educational freedom.
Tuition vouchers predate Milton Friedman's 1955 essay by more than 100 years. Compulsory attendance at government-operated schools was a feature of theocratic colonies like Massachusetts Bay and New Haven. More colonies in pre-Revolutionary British North America either did not compel attendance at school or subsidized schools of the parents' choice than compelled attendance at government-operated schools. Educational freedom in the US died when, in the early decades of the 19th century, waves of poor Catholic immigrants demanded equal treatment for their schools and prompted an allergic reaction in the wealthier Protestant majority. What we in the US call "the pubic school system" (the policy that restricts parents' options for the use of the taxpayers' sub-adult education subsidy to schools operated by government employees) originated in Congregationalist evangelism and anti-Catholic bigotry.
It does not take 12 years at $12,000 per child-year to teach a normal child to read and compute. Most vocational training occurs more effectively on the job than in a classroom (Hiram Maxim left school at 14 and apprenticed. Cyrus McCormick was homeschooled by his family of farmer-blacksmiths). State (government, generally) provision of History, Civics, and Economics instruction is a threat to democracy, just as State operation of newspapers and electronic broadcast news media would be (are, in totalitarian countries like Cuba and North Korea). The US State-monopoly school system has become an employment program for dues-paying members of the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel, a source of padded supply, consulting and construction contracts for politically-connected insiders, and a venue for State-worshipful indoctrination.
I'm not tracking the author's negative tone. I thought the lefties were all about "choice", no? I saw "Waiting for Superman". There's no real way to spin the fact that public schools for America's minorities by-and-large are horrible. Teachers unions protect crappy teachers and doom minorities to a life-long cycle of under-employment and poverty. The public schools always complain that more money can fix their problems. Ok, give the money to the parents, let them decide. If public schools are so great, they will use their money to stay right where they are. If not, they'll leave, which will tell you everything you need to know about teachers unions.
2/3 Of GULF DEAD ZONE is due to 10% ETHANOL ADDED TO GASOLINE>
KOCH BROTHERS WANT MORE CORN ETHANOL PLANTS MANDATED!!!!
NO FOODS FOR FUELS!!!!
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