Wednesday, September 05, 2012

School Daze

It's that time of year.

The end of August and the beginning of September is when America's children head back to school.  Most of these children will be going to public schools, including most children of conservatives.  And that bothers me. 

For decades conservatives have sounded the alarm about the academic failings and leftist social engineering plaguing public education.  And for decades conservative parents have kept sending their children to public schools.  Why?  If public schools have become liberalism's madrassas, as Ann Coulter called them, why do conservative parents blithely entrust their children to them?  What kind of sense does that make?

Yes, I understand that the main alternatives to public education, homeschooling and private schools, aren't feasible for some conservative parents.  But I suspect that a lot of conservatives could home school or private school their kids but just aren't willing to make the sacrifices that would entail.  They'd rather take the easier and cheaper way out and send little Johnny to public school, convincing themselves that he'll somehow escape the secular progressive indoctrination endemic there.  He won't.

Polls show that the majority of younger Americans, those 30 and under, support Obama, while the majority of older Americans don't.  Why this generation gap?  Public schools.  They have been shockingly successful at inculcating the PC, liberal, big government ideology into their captive audience of children.  Conservatives know this, yet they keep giving public schools their kids.  It makes me wonder how committed conservatives really are to the survival of their own principles.

I believe that if conservatives want their beliefs to not only survive but flourish then private education must become the norm for them.   Public schools are hostile to conservative ideals and that isn't going to change any time soon.  Entrusting their children to public education when they don't absolutely have to is, in my view, a failure of conservative parenting.  It's like Abraham Lincoln said.  The political philosophy in the classroom in one generation becomes the political philosophy of the country in the next generation.  Conservatives can stop that "prophecy" dead in its tracks.  Don't send little Johnny to the little red school house.  Teach him at home or use private education.  Aren't conservative ideals worth the sacrifice?

2 comments:

Skunkfeathers said...

I am thankful that when I attended public school in Iowa, basics were stressed instead of social engineering and dumbed down education. Liberalism has done plenty of damage to public education, particularly in inner cities and where liberalism is firmly entrenched. Creating a cycle of dependency by diminished self-worth, self accountability and self responsibility. Small wonder that the DNC touts "we belong to government", and not the other way around.

Anonymous said...

I, like Skunky am thankful for the schools that I went too. They were, granted public schools, but they were also from a different time, when they actually did teach what was supposed to be taught.....not doctrine, but knowledge.

I know, that I keep an eye on my girls, and what they are taught at school. When they are taught something that is wrong, I teach them the right things.....

Great post my friend. So much truth in this one. I hope a lot of people read this one.