Conform: Exposing the Truth About Common Core and Public Education by Glenn Beck

Author:Glenn Beck [Beck, Glenn]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Threshold Editions
Published: 2014-05-06T00:00:00+00:00

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MANY PARENTS AREN’T EQUIPPED TO MAKE THE RIGHT CHOICES FOR THEIR CHILDREN

“Do we really need to give more autonomy to a mom who can’t enforce a bedtime or the dad who disparages school as a waste of time? Should we trust the judgment of a parent who constantly tells their kid how stupid he or she is? Certainly, such families need attention and support, but more autonomy? Really?”

—JULIE MACK, Michigan education columnist

“If I’m a parent in poverty I have no clue because I’m trying to struggle and live day to day. The idea of parents making decisions simply based on choice is the abandonment of public schools.”

—MICHAEL WALKER-JONES, executive director of the Louisiana Association of Educators

The concept of choice is fundamental to almost everything we do in life.

We decide where we want to live, how many kids we want to have, what kind of car we want to drive, what type of career to have, and whether to eat at Burger King or McDonald’s for dinner.

The U.S. Constitution trusts us to make all of those choices as free individuals participating in a free-market economy. And that type of freedom builds consumer power. Those competing for our hearts, minds, and wallets are forced to shape their products and services to our tastes and demands. Those that refuse quickly find out just how powerful the free market really is.

But when it comes to K–12 education, consumer choice has been severely limited by the government school monopoly. That means competition between different types of schools has been limited, and the resulting pressure for schools to improve has been noticeably absent.

The American government school establishment, which includes administrators, teachers, school support staff, and union leaders, is responsible for putting us in this situation. Their livelihoods are tied to their traditional public school monopoly, and they do whatever it takes to maintain the status quo—students and parents be damned.

The establishment wants government to continue to force the children of average-income families to attend local public schools. They don’t want to compete for students—and the government dollars tied to each one—with public charter schools or private schools. They defend this stance with all kinds of ridiculous arguments, but the one that seems to be made (or at least insinuated) with increasing frequency is the idea that parents are just too dumb to make proper decisions about schools. As a result, the reasoning goes, the logical choice for everyone is the local public school, which also happens to conveniently be staffed by public employees who belong to labor unions.

“In some cases, parents are very good in making decisions about their child,” Democratic state representative Neil Brannon said during a debate in the Oklahoma legislature over a school choice expansion bill. “But in some cases, I’ve seen students with disabilities where the parents have disabilities, also. Now are they really the ones who ought to be making the decisions about where that child goes [to school]? I have great concerns about that, and I think we have to be careful.

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