Libertarian responds to Public Forum Education Debate
RALEIGH (Sept. 19) — Mike Munger, Libertarian candidate for governor, responded to the Public Forum for North Carolina Education gubernatorial debate held today:
The Democratic and Republican candidates held another alleged debate today, sponsored by a supposedly non-partisan group, which excluded the third candidate in the race. Predictably, their answers focused on how they are going to fix the problem by using government power.
The event was ironically held under the banner: “Education: Everybody’s Business.†Everybody, that is, except those who challenge the status quo, including a professor with nearly 25 years as an educator. Compounding the irony was the fact this “public†forum was held on private property and attendance was by invitation only. The program was recorded by the NC Telecommunications Association, another supposedly non-partisan group, and will be aired by WUNC on cable systems across the state.
News14 Carolina aired the debate live, but to their credit they interviewed me afterward. I hope that the follow-up interview will be distributed along with the main debate.
Public Forum for North Carolina Education President John Dornan opened the event by saying this was the third time his group has sponsored this event. He failed to mention, of course, that it is also the third time they have excluded the Libertarian Party candidate.
Also conspicuously absent was any apparent involvement of parents. Dornan mentioned the teachers, education administrators, government officials and business leaders were among the 400 people attending, but did not say anything about parents.
Lt. Governor Perdue said there shouldn’t be only one paradigm for education. Mayor McCrory claimed he wanted to change the “culture of education.†Yet both talked only about one paradigm and one culture — that of having bureaucrats in Raleigh choose the curriculum, restrict the selection of teachers, and dictate the process of licensing.
The truth is that nothing will change if either of these folks are elected. Perdue believes the “responsibility of education rests with the governor,†a statement that shows her contempt for the parents and teachers of our state.
McCrory said he’d put more business leaders on the state Board of Education. Take away the political sloganeering, and both are telling the insulated and hidebound education establishment: “Vote for me, and I will give you other people’s money.â€
My platform calls for a real paradigm shift, and a truly new culture. I believe the responsibility for each child’s education rests with two groups: the parents of that child, and the highly motivated teachers that the parent chooses. And I’ll let you keep more of your own money, money you yourself have earned. I would offer each parent in the state an education voucher, financed by lottery proceeds, of $1,250 per child in their household. This voucher could only be spent at a state-accredited school, or be credited to the household in the case of home-schooling.
And by the way, vouchers don’t “cost†anything, as Perdue claims, because it’s your money, not the government’s. If anything, vouchers would save money in the long run, as the average costs of education would fall.
Competition and school choice will be the central premise of the Munger Administration’s education policy, to give parents more control over their children’s education. I would streamline and simpilfy the accreditation process, lift the cap on charter schools, and foster the growth of charter schools, religious or theme schools, or any other kind of innovative educational program that can attract the children of parents who want to exercise their choices as parents.
I know charter schools work because my son attends Raleigh Charter High School, ranked as one of the top ten high schools in the nation. The cost per student is just over half that of the average for NC high schools. Facilities costs are less, administrative costs are less, and janitorial services are either provided by the students (they take out their own trash), or by contracting out to private firms that clean the bathrooms and mop the floors.
Last, but not least, I would put a floor on public school spending at its existing level, for a five year adjustment period. Our schools need basic infrastructure work, from physical plant improvements to textbooks. So those of you worried about my voucher program should rest assured: the money will come from the payments already owed to education, by statute, but taken by the General Assembly for pet projects. No program cannot work by starving the traditional public schools of revenue. And I don’t want the General Assembly to be tempted to cut education dollars and use them for pork barrel spending in their districts, hoping lottery money will make up the difference.
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LIBERTARIAN PARTY OF NORTH CAROLINA
PO Box 28141 Raleigh NC 27611 * 877.843.5762 * www.LPNC.org
Brian Irving, Communications Director, 919.538.4548
Barbara Howe
Campaign Manager, Munger for Governor
www.munger08.com
919-690-1423 (h)
919-475-2371 (c)
I’m the only one in this world. Can please someone join me in this life? Or maybe death…
I don’t think “Coming Back” could have said it any better. (You have a real name or alias I could call you, instead? 😉
Education is like an industry, but one that hasn’t advanced at all or barely so in nearly a century of existence of the public school system.
Sure, some districts are okay. Mine operates independent from LAUSD and manages its resources a lot more like a private school. And there’s over 8000 concurrently in the school system here at a given time, which for the size of our city, is overwhelming.
In fact, another reason why property taxes are so is due to the high school’s API score.
Ok. Yeah, we’re not as terrible as gov’t schools. I believe there are even some closet libertarian teachers here, but in social studies, the whole department is filled with “moderate centrists” who will gladly go on strike at the union’s request.
The district also continually exists beyond its means and will inherently suffer the problems other public schools do (a larger safety net, unionized teachers, dependence on gov’t funding).
Having said that, while I’m not completely sure whether vouchers or tax credits are better reform, any reform that is taken must also DECREASE dependence on gov’t funds.
It shouldn’t be a hard case to make in more affluent communities at all. If given a choice of where their money went, I’m sure they would overwhelmingly pick education. (Our district is actually rebuilding the schools right now, through a special measure passed by voters while others are decreasing their budgets).
Having said all this, private schools are still the ideal type of learning institutions, and if all schools were private, it wouldn’t be hard for families to afford it. They’d also have choices between more types of schools as well. Where choice dominates, everyone who makes the extra effort will be rewarded.
Why haven’t they copied my school?
Some of the other local private schools have already begun copying my school. They started copying us about 1 year after we opened.
But, after 6 years, no government run school has changed in any way. They know what we are doing. We are famous in our city. Many teachers from other schools send their children to our school.
Government change requires major change at all levels. It’s political. You have to convince everyone, including administrators, teachers, unions, voters, elected officials – it could take centuries.
Even in the US, to change as radically as my school has done would be unlikely for government run schools.
Private schools can change immediately. Different private schools can offer different programs to meet the diverse educational needs of students. There are many different kinds of people with different needs regarding not only teaching systems but subjects taught. There are also different needs regarding religious education and we shouldn’t overlook the Constitutional guarantees regarding freedom of association.
Finally, the kids are in school now. To delay change by even a few years can mean that some students will have been deprived of their best opportunity to have a good life – forever. With government schools it could take generations to make changes. And they will never be able to satisfy the variety of educational needs of their customers – the students and their parents.
Only by having a free market filled with a variety of privately run schools can we truly serve the needs of each and every student.
If by “quality,” you mean they’ve trained you well to love your masters, then yes, it is “quality.”
Why isn’t it possible to work within the current system to create more public schools that are as successful as your private school? Why does privatization necessarily make schools any better, if there is competitiveness no matter what?
Not all private schools are better than all public schools at the present time in the US.
In fact, the US has some of the best public schools in the world. (Those world tests that compare countries’ educational systems are rigged, so ignore them. Rather than select a radom, representative sample of students to take the tests, many countries select only their most advanced students to be tested.)
The reason the US public schools have some quality is that the US is divided into school districts. To some extent, the school districts compete. If one district offers better schools, they will draw more families when those families are chosing where to buy a house and live. This will increase property values, increase revenues to the school district and allow the local school board to improve the local schools. So there are elements of the competitive market system in the public schools in the US.
Going to all private schools would increase this competitiveness and cause the school owners, managers and teachers to work hard to improve their educational programs to meet the needs of the students. It would eliminate the stagnating effect of having a “captive customer base” that cannot escape the school district. Schools could get much better faster.
I founded a completely private school, outside the US, 6 years ago. We have grown from a handful of students to over 250, from kindergarten through middle school. We receive no funding other than my own invested capital and the tuition payments of the students. We have many students on full or partial scholarship provided by the school: to those who have proven academic abilities, a good work ethic, successful class performance and family financial need.
The local public schools require students to take up to 14 subjects, many of which are quite frivolous. Our school focuses on a core of basic subjects. But, in the core subjects such as math, science, social studies, reading, English etc. our students have been progressing up to 30 times faster than the public school students at the same age.
My experience tells me that private schools can be much better than government run schools and that parents are willing to pay for it when they are able. We need to first adopt a voucher system to begin the changeover process and then finally, end the taxes and the vouchers and allow the complete separation of education and state.
Why do you think private schools are better than public schools?
GE
We will never be able to convince the American public to go directly from Government run and financed schools to Privately run and financed schools. It cannot be done in a single step.
School vouchers is a perfect stepping stone. It allows the creation and funding of alternative private schools. It allows those who are most fearful, the middle class, the chance to venture out and try public schools, by allowing them to vote with a refund of some of their tax dollars. This is true even if the Lottery Fund is used as the funding system, since this Lottery revenue is part of the State’s overall funding.
So, the middle class can try these new schools, and private school entrepreneurs will have a shot at creating better alternatives. This will take time, but if the free market schools are able to make a better educational product, then there will be a gradual shift from the government schools to the private schools. This is the best way to get the PRODUCTION side of education into the free market. It allows the marketplace to show that it can provide better education.
Once the shift from government to private schools becomes a major factor, perhaps educating the majority of students, it will then be possible to shift the FUNDING of the schools to the market as well, and to eliminate the government entirely.
This makes the Munger plan the best strategy for Libertarians, if we truly want to win. And this is why teachers’ unions and socialists have long opposed vouchers. They know that the use of vouchers will expose the poor quality of government schools by comparison with free market schools.
We know that free market education is 10 times better than government education. But, the voucher system is the best way to get from here to there.
And I hate No Child Left Behind. So does pretty much everyone else in my district.
Maybe I appreciate a quality education provided by my local government? Maybe that’s why I’m in favor of public education.
Mike – Yeah. They don’t teach you about analogies either, do they?
NCLB only enslaves your teachers. Whose interest are they looking out for at that point?
Because the federal government essentially sets the curriculum via NCLB, and because you regurgitate pro-state propaganda in your comments.
Yes, of course.
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http://www.chs.d211.org/socialstudies/traversdp/
Yes of course:
http://www.chs.d211.org/socialstudies/traversdp/
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Please, tell me how you know what I’m being taught.
You’re like Auschwitz prisoners who love their Nazi captors.
You guys are blind. It’s very sad.
They let us dance dirty, Ross.
GE, maybe I’m a naive fool, but the walls of every school I’ve been in weren’t dripping with evil. Plus, I’m not going to walk up to the fucking faces of every teacher I’ve ever had and call them a welfare parasite, because obviously their objective is to indoctrinate the youth into the state. Every teacher, apparently, everywhere.
Evil is a word I don’t use as often as you, I’m sorry.
You know what the school indoctrinates us with? Don’t dance dirty at the school dances.
You don’t know every school in the country, GE.
Trent – Not familiar but I’ll look him up.
From Wikipedia: “Education… focuses on the cultivation of skills, trades or professions, as well as mental, moral & aesthetic development.”
“The philosophy of education is the study of the purpose, nature and ideal content of education. Related topics include knowledge itself, the nature of the knowing mind and the human subject, problems of authority, and the relationship between education and society.”
It’s funny that this post exists the same day that my own psyche class reviews Piaget and I get a comment on my education article on NC for the first time since all of them were wiped clean.
Back to the point. AP history classes are one of the biggest propaganda courses you will ever take, Ross, having gone through it last year. They already know you have an innate capacity to think and will of course, be trying to convince you of government intervention all the harder. I should know. I was there a year ago.
(Made a stupid mistake dropping out this year, though, but that’s another story.)
The point is that classifications like that didn’t arise out of pure awareness on part of the government. People said “hey, these people are brighter- why not let them choose to take a college course instead?”
Government schools, (and yes, I’m in one- full disclosure), are nothing but cultivating grounds, teaching you how to think subjectively, and respond in kind. Here’s an example: watch your AP teacher closely after you ask him to explain the current bailout proposals for the banking industries lately. Note his choice of words and such.
Ever wondered why naturally, more teachers are liberal than not, even in “conservative” districts? It’s because by choosing to teach at a public school, you are conceding that the government has the right to the cult of state for children. Teachers have their own agendas aside from this, such as preaching more socialism than is already injected in our system, but that’s something else entirely. Luckily, the rhetoric isn’t so revved at my school (could probably relate to its relative success for a state-run institution).
My whole purpose behind the philosophy of education is basically, with Locke in mind (remember his influence on a certain document or two of ours?), is to teach you the basic components you need to ration and reason yourself, in addition to a few basic necessities needed for a society to survive.
But let me ask you this: how many times has your teacher ever told you to “back” up your thesis with “evidence” straight from someone else’s paper? Or to solve a problem their way, cause it’s more convenient. It may be subtle, and there may be other reasons, but more often than not, it’s conditioning you, just as Skinner and Pavlov have noted. You are depending on others to formulate opinions, not yourself.
By nature, by forcing this weighted set of standards on you, government will forever run certain subjects for you. I know- it’s done it to me. Having said that, our best move is to create more choice and eliminate some of these bureaucratic correspondences and start bringing this Lockean concept back into play before we start completely dissolving the entire infrastructure.
GE,
Are you familiar with Ludwig Lachmann? If so–what do you think of him?
Stockholm Syndrome.
“My husband is exceptionally pretty darn decent actually. Seriously, my husband is great as husbands go, … he doesn’t beat me that much.”
My school is exceptionally pretty darn decent actualitally. We’s been bein teached some intresting things.
Seriously, my school is great as schools go. They actually teach us useful things, they manage to keep over 95% of the kids until graduation, and they don’t indoctrinate us that much. In fact, a big part of my AP US history test today was that America has been largely built on challenging authority.
A legit platform plank on education:
Education is not what you get in public school, Ross. If you think it is, then you ARE a sucker, and while you’re naturally bright (obviously), you regurgitate plenty of the evil lies you’re fed there here in IPR comments.
The potential for a 2012 Munger presidential campaign — supported by the “Radicals” — makes me all the more glad I’m out of the LP!
Yeah, education is for suckers.
The excitement over Munger is completely lost on me. His pandering to the evil public education system and the welfare parasites known as “teachers” is sickening.