Here’s one of those peeks inside the mind of a true believer, a follower of Marx, whether they realize it or not. Even though this parent feels she is doing what is best for his child, she wonders if she shouldn’t sacrifice her child’s education for the greater good.
Not my words…hers:
My family lives on the west side of Los Angeles. I face the same choice as many urban families: Will the kids attend public or private schools? Should one minimize opportunities for one’s own child in service to the greater good?
In our desire to protect our children physically and academically, we send them to very expensive schools that are inherently segregated ethnically and economically. We, being white, educated, and comparatively affluent, are the agenda-setters in society. The agenda does not include fierce protection of the public school system we value in general terms but abandon in our own specific cases.
And so we’ve let down our future fellow citizens by turning our backs on them. And we’ve certainly let the government off the hook yet again, by individually shouldering the burden of quality education for our own children and letting the public schools crumble. Advice?
The collectivist laments providing the best for her child at the expense of the “greater good.” This is a great example of left wing thinking.
She doesn’t understand how this thinking has created the state the public school is in. Why did she choose the private school? Because it’s simply a better school.
Why are private schools better? Competition and the bottom line.
The owners of private schools want to earn a profit. In order to do that, they need to sell their product, in this case a good education. In order to provide a good education, they need to hire the best teachers they can afford. If the teachers they have don’t meet their standards, they find employment elsewhere. Then, the administrators minimize the costs of operating the schools while maximizing the environment students learn in.
Then they compete against the other private schools for your money. If the price is right and you like their product, you buy.
Now, in the public school system, there is no reason to do any of this.
Public schools don’t worry about making a profit. If they need more money, and they always seem to need more money, they can just raise taxes. If they can’t raise taxes, they’ll cut programs, or get more money from the federal government.
They don’t need to compete against anyone. They just have money budgeted for them.
This results in schools that don’t pay teachers as well as private school teachers. Generally, not always, but generally this results in the better teachers working for private schools. The physical school is might not be as nice as the private school, and the equipment is usually older. And administration costs are astronomical because of the immense bureaucracies.
This is the capitalist, free market system at work. The same capitalist, free market system that collectivist thinkers, like the one above, find to be evil. Everyone in the private school system is doing what is best for them, not for the collective. It results are obvious.
If they could accept this, then more students would be attending private schools via vouchers and more students would be receiving a better education.
But rather than rejoice that such schools exist and are available, collectivists consider sacrificing their children to the collective.
Such thinking is disgusting.
You have no such obligation to the collective. Your obligation is to your child. That’s what you put first.
UPDATE:
Linked at Linkiest. Thanks, John. Linkiest readers, stay a while and check out some of our other stuff. Then, sign up for a free subscription.
