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Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Chuck Norris :: Townhall.com Columnist
The Decline and Fall of Private Education
by Chuck Norris
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There's something the U.S. government doesn't want you to know. And it's come out again in the new Heritage Foundation report on education. It conveys that the general public is increasingly dissatisfied with public schools, with a rising number opting for private education.

The report explains that during the 2007 and 2008 legislative sessions, 44 states introduced school-choice legislation. And in 2008, choices for private school were enacted into law or expanded in Arizona, Utah, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana and Pennsylvania. Today 14 states and the District of Columbia offer voucher or education tax-credit programs that aid parents with sending their children to private schools. But that may be short-lived.

Despite the growing public preference for private education, Congress recently canceled the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which was created in 2004 to offer students from low-income families in the nation's capital an opportunity to join the voucher educational community. The law provided $14 million in scholarships to help pay for tuition at private schools of their choosing. But no longer.

Why did Congress nix the program, especially when recent studies showed that students receiving vouchers since the program's inception were academically 18.9 months ahead of their peers? (I read the other day that 100 percent of Thurgood Marshall Academy's charter graduates are accepted to colleges.) And why would Congress phase out a program that costs $7,500 per student annually, compared with the $15,000 it costs in Washington's public schools to educate a child?

So its cancellation is not a result of costing too much, because it's half the price of public schooling. And it's not because of inferior quality, because the kids enrolled in the program were scoring higher than students in regular schools. There's only one reason Congress canceled it, and it comes down to this: federal control and educational indoctrination.

Of course, government officials won't admit to a blatant usurpation of our rights, but they will say their educational reform is seeking to help your children. They will say it is necessary to establish common educational standards. They will say that we need to leave education to the experts and not to parents. And I fear that too many of us simply will give in to the whims of the nanny state.

As I wrote in my new best-selling book, "Black Belt Patriotism: How to Reawaken America": "The reason that government is cracking down on private instruction has more to do with suppressing alternative education than assuring educational standards. The rationale is quite simple, though rarely if ever stated: control future generations and you control the future. So rather than letting parents be the primary educators of their children -- either directly or by educating their children in the private schools of their choice -- (government) want(s) to deny parental rights, establish an educational monopoly run by the state, and limit private education options. It is so simple any socialist can understand it. As Joseph Stalin once stated, 'Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.'" (Get a free chapter of my book at here.)

What's amazing, too, is how hypocritical it is for Congress to make this decision. The Heritage Foundation's report also conveys that 44 percent of current United States senators and 36 percent of current members of the U.S. House of Representatives have "at one time sent their children to private schools." While the foundation found that 11 percent of American students attend private schools, 20 percent of the members of the 111th Congress attended private high schools. And they want to remove the voucher option for private school education?

While the members of President Barack Obama's administration profess to have education as a top priority, they did nothing in March when Congress chose to discontinue the Opportunity Scholarship Program. Why? Because they all are in cahoots to not only choose our medical care for us, own the mortgage insurance and finance businesses, and place caps on corporate earnings but also control our educational choices for our children. Continued...

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About The Author
Chuck Norris is a columnist and impossible to kill.
 
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Chuck, young kids need scholarships too
I read the article, but with many parents not earning enough in today's economic climate, parents need scholarships and vouchers to get the kids into the private schools. And from what I have found so far on the internet is deadline after deadline has passed to qualify or apply for help. Man, what kind of help is that if you can see the prizes but can't even enter into the contest to karate-chop and prove that your kid deserves a spot in the private school just like the others? I am a truck driver and because I own trucks and trailers, I don't qualify for food stamps neither medicaid for my kids. We sold martial arts supplies here in Houston for ten years for side money, but we started having too many thieves take our Century stuff, so we closed the stores. Well, they stole stun guns and sometimes four foot swords too! Maybe you could point some of us the way, to maybe, to qualify for some kind of money to help me keep my two of my three girls in private school? Thanks for reading, I know that you are a busy guy.

Stop Complaining
"financial circumstances limit a parent’s ability to have the option of sending their children to a private school."

whine, whine, whine,

If it's important to you, suck it up. Public schools give a one size fits all education. if you want something better for your kids, suck it up.

In the early 70's my parents sent my sister and myself to a parochial school at great cost to themselves; I remember bringing two checks for $80.00 each to the principle every month. My father made less then 20,000 a year as a entry grade accountant. That was after putting himself thru night school when he left the Marine Corp.(before the new GI bill) that comes to about 8% pretax income, we ate fried bologna and scraped.

This is just another case of whiny Protestants wanting Uncle Sam to shape the world into something their comfortable with.

Personally, I don't believe the government owes you an education, if you want to be a parent, be prepared to pay for it.
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