ON EDUCATION

“Big Brother’s ideas about what and how children should be taught are not always those of mom and dad. Americans differ on same-sex marriage and evolution, on the importance of sports and the value of phonics, on the right to bear arms and the reverence due the Confederate flag. Some parents are committed secularists; others are devout believers... Americans hold disparate opinions on everything from the truth of the Bible to the meaning of the First Amendment... With parents so often in boisterous disagreement, why should children be locked into a one-size-fits-all, government-knows-best model of education? Nobody would want the government to run 90 percent of the nation’s entertainment industry. Nobody thinks that 90 percent of all housing should be owned by the state... Yet the government’s control of 90 percent of the nation’s schools leaves most Americans strangely unconcerned... In a society founded on political and economic liberty, government schools should have no place... Education is too important to be left to the government.”

—Jeff Jacoby