The U.S. Constitution is an individual liberty-protecting document. Individual rights is the practical implementation of liberty. The principle of individual rights defines the scope and limits of the individual’s liberty in a social context. Among the most important of these liberty rights is the right to intellectual freedom. The importance of intellectual freedom is the reason for the First Amendment. Freedom from and of religion (aka separation of church and state), of speech and press, of peaceable assembly (or association), and to petition the government are all subcategories of intellectual freedom.
But there is a huge hole in the First Amendment. Education certainly is integral to rights-oriented intellectual freedom, worthy of being protected from government infringement. The failure to protect individual rights in education is a shocking omission for an amendment dedicated to intellectual freedom. Government funding and control of education should thus be the target of the amendment process. Contrary to dogma, government schools are run by the government, primarily for the government. Not for the children. Not for the parents. Not for the taxpayers. They are meant for government jobs. Even worse, they are means to indoctrination in what the state decides is important. Public control has always meant government control.
Look around. The massive battles over school curriculum are a manifestation of the government's near monopoly over the schools. The current battles over gender issues in the schools is just the latest example of a long-running problem. What else would you expect in a socialized, centrally planned, government imposed scheme?
We need to protect educational freedom. The individual right to hold and practice educational ideas without government infringement or abridgement, whether in regard to taxing, funding, administration, or anything else, should be protected as thoroughly as religion. Therefore, we need the separation of education and state in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of religion and state—to preclude any faction from the use of political power to impose its educational ideas on everyone else.
It’s true that the Constitution, which is theoretically a limitation on government power, should have been enough to guarantee educational freedom. After all, the Constitution does not grant the government the power to fund or administer public schools. But given the reality of the government's overpowering role in the schools, despite being technically unconstitutional, we must establish freedom of education explicitly. For the reasons cited above, the amendment I would add to the U.S. Constitution, either separately or folded into the First Amendment, is as simple as the opening lines of the First Amendment:
Neither Congress nor any other governmental entity shall make any law respecting an establishment of education, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
This simple clause would explicitly separate education and state, and establish freedom of education as thoroughly as freedom of religion.
Of course, that is the ideal. It’s realistic and worth fighting for over the long term. In the meantime, I fight for school choice, through such vehicles as tax credits or education savings accounts (ESAs). Tax credits, such as I advocated in The Objective Standard in Toward a Free Market in Education: School Vouchers or Tax Credits?, are superior to things like ESAs or vouchers, because tax credits eliminate the redistribution of wealth and minimize the chance of government infringement on free school choice.
But I don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. So, I support reforms that lead to more parental school choice. ESAs, for example, allow the established education tax dollars to follow the student. I support ESAs because they are the simplest and most politically feasable way to expand educational freedom and rights available today. Vouchers are more problematic, as the experience in Louisiana demonstrates. Charter schools are also a step in the rights direction, albeit a very limited one.
Related Reading:
Parents’ School Choice Rights Shouldn't Depend on Winning Elections
Add Freedom of Education, not Prayer, to the First Amendment
Separation of Church (or Education) and State
Are Parents Capable of Properly Educating Their Children in a Free Market?
Toward a Free Market in Education: School Vouchers or Tax Credits? My article for The Objective Standard
Education in a Free Society—C. Bradley Thompson for The Objective Standard
Why We Need the Separation of Education and State
1 comment:
You are an idiot.
Post a Comment