All government-run schools shut down tomorrow?

Just think about it for a minute. What would really happen? Every single government school — from pre-K to state-run universities. Forget the inevitable assanine lawsuits, what would people do? Imagine all the big yellow school buses being sold off to hippies– the buildings sold to the highest bidder. What about all the people?

Certainly, people would be screaming and yelling. Obviously every single politician from the dog-catcher to the president would be trying to get on the news to promote their own, better solution. But they’re slow (fortunately), so what would actual, real people do? What would you do, if you had children? What would you do if you didn’t have children? I know I’d quit my job in a minute. Why?

What else would everyone else do? Two-parent families with both parents working would have the most immediate problem. They would either have one parent stay home, or they’d find a friend or relative with which to leave their child. Any adults that were not working would quickly find themselves to be quite popular. Within a week, those who were already staying at home might advertise that they were available.

Leaving aside the legal issues that would appear (leaving children with others like this is illegal now), new businesses would spring up overnight. I’d be running one of them. They’d be a place where busy parents could leave their children during the day. At a price, certainly, but it would be very easily afforded. How?

Well, if the schools were shut down, there would be no state expense for schools. The “average” family of four would get back the money that’s being spent on their students — nearly $6000 PER student. That’s $12,000 those parents suddenly have to spend. And I’d only charge in the range of $80 per week — under $4,000 per student per year. Now the parents would not only have absolute and total freedom of choice in selecting which kind of school and what kind of education their child gets, but they also have more money in their pocket.

I have seriously researched this, and I have run the numbers. I’ve attempted to prepare everything for starting such a business. However, the massive roadblock is government. I cannot care for children in my house because I don’t have a wheelchair ramp! I can’t care for them in a storefront because there is a government requirement for a specific minimum number of square feet of window space for each square inch of floor space. The only way I can start the business now is to have a building custom built to government specifications.

I know, I can hear the liberals screaming already, “What about the poor?” Well, the so-called poor are living under the poverty level. To be “poor,” according to the utterly useless dept of Health and Human Services, one has to earn less than $9,310 a year. You cannot be employed full-time and earn that much. Therefore, anyone who is “officially” poor, is already NOT working full-time, by definition. So they can just as easily make arrangements with their friends to have their children stay with others.

What other complaints are there? Oh yes, alleged “quality” of education. That’s BS. Children would learn more sitting watching grass grow than they currently learn in schools now. There is NO quality now, so anything is better. Can you show examples of some that would suffer under such a system? Sure. But no more than are already suffering under the current system — in fact many fewer would suffer.

I know it’s a pipe dream — not because it wouldn’t work — this would be a truly wonderful system of education (it worked exceeding well for thousands of years). It won’t work because too many people are ruled by emotions instead of facts, and too many educrats are too entrenched in the system. They want the system to keep supporting them, even if the system produces no results. And they know enough people will cry when they simply yell out, “Its for the children!”

Said Ogre @ 7:37 am | Permalink   

1. The only flaw I see in this is that the gov’t wouldn’t give back the tax money it spends on schools

   Comment by Harvey — 3/26/2005 @ 8:33 am

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2. Sometimes Ogre, Pipe Dreams can become either reality, or stir the pot creating a newer, better reality.

   Comment by GMRoper — 3/26/2005 @ 8:36 am

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3. Ogre, I did some math, approximations not definitive by any means, to determine what my husband I could save in taxes if all public education (to include higher education) expenditures were eliminated. i.e., the elimination of the public school system. Our tax savings came out to approximately $7337. I based this on a 3% savings in federal taxes-education is approximately 3% of the federal budget, a 43% savings in state taxes, and a 66% savings in local taxes. I have no children in school and fall within the upper 2% of wage earners. Your numbers above are flawed in that you assume that the family would receive back the per pupil cost in saved taxes. They would not. The most they could receive back would be the percentage of the taxes they paid in that is alloted to educational spending. So folks like me would be getting part of that money even though I have no children in school because I pay for it even though I have no children in school.

   The poverty income you quoted above is for a single person and it is wrong. Teh poverty income for a single person is 9570. For a familyof 2 it is 12,830, 3-16090 and 4- 19,350. If the single person were working full time at a minimum wage job he/she would earn $10,712 a year. That equates to 4.2 hours less than a 40 hour workweek. Many employers who pay minimum also restrict hours worked to 35 per week to avoid FLSA overtime. If both parents worked and earned miminum wage with two kids they would still be below the poverty level. Just becasue teh government privatized all education doesn’t mean they would stop oversight. You would still have to be qualified to teach.

   Comment by Carol — 3/26/2005 @ 11:24 am

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4. I would do nothing different. I’d still stay at home teaching my kids. But I would suddenly be the most popular mom on the block!

   Comment by Kris — 3/26/2005 @ 3:40 pm

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5. Claiming that a family of four has two full-time wage earners earning minimum wage is a lie. No such family exists. Minumum wage earners are part-time people, college students, and kids.

   As for the government privitized and qualifications, that’s what I’m advocating removing. Do you think for a minute that if government suddenly stopped providing education that no one would get one?

   Comment by Ogre — 3/26/2005 @ 4:34 pm

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6. Ogre I don’t know where you live but the fast food joints and Wal Marts around where I live have more adults than teenagers. Of ocurse there are families where both parents work for minimum wage. However, I wasn’t trouncing your idea. The money my husband I could save could in turn be invested for our retirement. If you got rid of public education then folks in my age group could put aside more for retirement so youcould get rid of social security. Now if folks with kids didn’t have to pay for social secruity then they might have enough to pay for the educationof thier choice for their kids. You may be on to something.

   Comment by Carol — 3/26/2005 @ 5:55 pm

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7. People think many of my ideas are crazy, but when you really think them through, I promise they honestly do help everyone…well, OK, actually they help everyone who is NOT a lazy SOB and who DOES take responsiblity for their own actions.

   Now if I can just get a national chapter of SSCCATAGAPP started…

   Comment by Ogre — 3/26/2005 @ 7:45 pm

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8. I would do nothing different….my son is in a private school, I am self employed where my time is mine so I spend lots of time with my son. My wife is very successful, so my job is simply for my satisfaction, (betcha never heard a lefty say that huh?), so even if my son were in public school, (Gos Forbid), I could stay home and homeschool.

   But I like the idea.

   Comment by Kender — 3/26/2005 @ 11:33 pm

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9. Wow, its not common that I end up on the left of an arguement. The cost to taxpayers in the long run would be huge as the legions of uneducated grew. Take a look at DC where public education is at its worst. Thats essentially what all cities would become. As for me, I would move into a cornfield in the middle of Nebraska.

   Comment by Trans Sient — 3/27/2005 @ 12:02 am

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10. Trans Sient-
    If the undereducated population grew, they could potentially fill the unskilled labor demand currently being met by illegal immigration. Might drive down the cost of a big mac as well (local McDonald’s hourly wages START at near $7 per hour, well above the government mandated minimum wage.)

    Comment by glenn — 3/28/2005 @ 5:36 am

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11. Also, Trans Sient, you’re making my point — government education in DC has failed! There already ARE legions of uneducated! If government got out of the way, there would honestly be LESS uneducated!

    But why would there be a cost to taxpayers? Why does it cost me for someone to NOT get an education? That sounds like a mob racket — pay me for protection because you never know what might happen.

    Comment by Ogre — 3/28/2005 @ 9:01 am

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12. You make some really good points here. Hate to offend your DC and mid-Atlantic area readers, but I’m writing this at the University of Maryland. The education isn’t exactly of high caliber here (notably chemistry for non-chemists), but there are quite a few students who are learning to balance budgets, watch their bills, and overall begin to get a feel for the real world - I would hate for Universities to basically become glorified apartment complexes, but that’s really what they’re best for. Not learning, but living. K-12 schooling doesn’t even have that advantage. During my first semester here, I picked up “A Patriot’s History of the United States” by Schweikart (sp?), and it tossed just about everything I learned in my K-12 years about history out the window. What does it say about the current state of affairs in K-12 when a future educator himself receives major cognitive dissonace from a SINGLE textbook? I was schooled in Connecticut, so don’t think that the elites of the Northeast are so well-off. However, I’ve seen the DC-area schools, and I have to agree, that there is no hope for that region to continue in its current form. It. Is. A. Mess.

    Comment by The Babaganoosh — 3/28/2005 @ 1:29 pm

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