“Innovators and creative geniuses cannot be reared in school. They are precisely the men who defy what the school has taught them.”

– Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973)

The government education system has failed. Kids are not learning what they need to know to compete in a global economy. There is no Constitutional authority for the federal government to be involved in education. 

I will work to abolish the federal Department of Education.  It doesn’t educate anyone, but merely takes taxpayer money and imposes massive amounts of regulations and mandates on local schools. More money from Washington has given us three generations of Americans who lack basic education in science, math, history, geography, and English composition and literature.  Colleges report that a majority of incoming students need remedial courses in English and math, information they should have learned in high school.

Parents and kids have few choices in protesting ineffective educational methods. If they wish to use private schools, they must still pay taxes for government schools. Charter schools show very good results, but they are at the mercy of school boards and government officials who could shut them down in an instant. Some Libertarians support vouchers as a good first step to giving parents a choice. However, this could lead to government control of private schools. The best alternative would be tuition tax credits for parents (or anyone else) who send a child to private school. This will force government schools to compete and will enable parents to educate their kids their way. Schools need competition, like all other aspects of the economy.

We need the complete separation of school and state in order to guarantee decent education for future generations.  A lot of parents have gone this route already, by homeschooling their kids. A lot more will follow if the current system doesn’t change.