Utopia

Schools & Education

Originally I had planned to dictate what the public schools in Utopia would be like. But after getting a whap in the head, courtesy of John Stossel, I’ve reconsidered. There will be no public schools in Utopia at all. Zero.

Instead, Utopia will be 100 percent served by charter schools, paid via vouchers. I don’t want to get too involved in the discussion of why charter schools and vouchers are superior to the stupid public school system we have in place, but in a word: competition. Government-run public schools have no competition. Private schools don’t count, because most people can’t afford them. Those that can almost always choose them. But charter schools would be privately run businesses and businesses are in the business of keeping their customers. When students (and by extension, parents) are their customers, charter schools bend over backwards to make them happy. With public schools all parents can do is complain, and then nothing happens (because no matter what they do—or don’t do—the public school will still be in business). Charter schools can hire and fire who they like or dislike. Charter schools can pay teachers more—way more—than public schools do, and have tons of freedom that public schools don’t.

For example, many people complain about the lack of prayer in school. It used to be common practice, but not anymore because many opponents claimed that it broke the separation of church and state (and they were right). With a private charter school, they can have as much prayer as they want… because they are not government-run! Private businesses can have whatever rules they want (as long as they aren’t unconstitutional).

Charter schools can focus on whatever subjects they want, structure school breaks whenever they want and hold classes whenever they want. Public schools can’t. Public schools must bow to the lowest common denominator. Charter schools don’t.

And with charter schools, parents and students have a choice. Hate the school your child goes to? Fine, take him down the street to the school his best friend attends, who loves it. Crappy charter schools get better or go out of business. Crappy public schools pretty much stay crappy. No competition.

For those of you wondering how these charter schools are paid for, that’s easy. The same way public schools are paid for: your taxes. Property taxes are generally used to pay for schooling, and their will be no change here. The government will collect the taxes, and then $5000 (the amount will vary over time, but this is a ballpark for now) per child will be "attached" to each school-age child. When the parent's choose a school, the money will be sent to it for the child. Easy.

For more information on charter schools and why public schools suck so much, see John Stossel’s video on Education in the US: