IN PRAISE OF GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS

  IN recent years it has become quite fashionable to attack public schools.  They do not educate the students.  Government school students can not read, or write, and know little (or no) science, math, history and geography.  Government teachers seem to be doing little than forming improper relationships with attractive students, only sometimes of the opposite gender.  And tax financed school budgets continue to rise, costing taxpayers, in the time of financial distress, what money they have left.  In other words the overall picture is terrible and getting worse. 

   However, I rise to defend these coercive government institutions.  The reason why no one else---except professionals in the field (and they are political whores)---sees a benefit is that they have too narrow of a view.  For example, many people object to public financing of sports stadiums.  The surface objection is that the sports teams have enough money.  The “defense” is that the stadium will employ many non players.  And the businesses around the stadium will gain customers.  In other words, the indirect benefits will pay for the costs to the taxpayers. 

   I am not saying that this argument is valid, in all cases, or even in any.  However, it is an argument and is worthy of analysis.  Similar arguments can be offered for legally coercive government schools.  And I am not referring to the employment of teachers, although this could be used.  It does concentrate a large number of clearly incompetent and parasitical “professionals” in one place.  As long as they stay in classrooms they can not infect banks, impair factories, trouble repair shops, and destroy department stores, etc.  Such a school is a type of social quarantine location. 

    The main advantage is that the government schools also concentrate (and isolate!) unruly children.  I know that many of these do not attend school.  But many do.  And while they are there they are not causing problems among the general public, by stealing, harassing and generally interfering with traffic and trade.  Of course they cause problems within the schools.  But the schools do not do much good (otherwise), so this is minimizing the damage.  It is difficult to make a ruin worse than it is.   

    I admit that not all public school students are inferior types.  Many are basically good kids.  And if they were not forced to go to school for a decade or so they would then be “out there” in the labor force.  And they would probably be good workers, as decent teenagers often want to work.  Should they be released to do this they would displace lazy adult workers.  And unemployment would rise.  And adult thugs would be on the ones on the street corners, and not relatively puny teenagers. 

    As I wrote, public schools serve good purposes.  If one can not remove a cancerous growth then confining it to a relatively small area is a good treatment.   

 

 

Comments

[Tobias]

They also provide a training camp for future athletes who will go on to college sports (on sports scholarships, of course) and then professional sports, which is a major business and employs many people. Keeping certain key demographics (to use a euphemism) in high school rather than letting them drop out is in large part why the NBA and other major sports leagues get such good players.