Earlier this week, they launched a series called Reason Saves Cleveland with Drew Carey.  Cleveland suffers from a lot of the same problems that Albany does.  Like us, they have a poor economy that’s lost a lot of manufacturing jobs.  Like us, they have an educational system that is driving residents to the outlying areas.  In their series, Reason TV head honcho Nick Gillespie looks at alternative methods for education that might just help pull Cleveland, and unbeknownst to Nic,. it might help Albany out of the funk it’s been in.

One key aspected Gillespie looks at hard and heavy are charter schools.  For those who aren’t familiar with charter schools, they’re basically publicly funded private schools.  They received tax dollars and don’t charge students to go there like public schools, but enjoy a great deal more autonomy in decisions much like private schools.  These are allowed for under state law, and are definitely worth looking into.

Charter schools are shown to produce better results than normal public institutions on most tests, and there are a lot of reasons for that.  One such reason is that teachers are able to adapt their lessons to the class.  Public schools have to move at a certain pace, which isn’t exactly blistering for most students.  Charter schools, on the other hand, can move much quicker and therefore cover more ground during the school year.  This enables teachers to…well…teach.

Another advantage of charter schools is discipline.  Teachers in public schools often report that school discipline is non-existent.  If a teacher sends an unruly student out of the room, the principles will often send the student right back with no correct action being done, or often without it even being possible.  At charter schools, like private schools, the parents are shown to be much more involved.  At many, this is a requirement.  This means that when the school calls home to explain what little Johnny just did, someone answers. 

Now, charter schools alone aren’t the answer.  But they’re a great start that could be done at the local level.  It has many of the benefits of a private school, but provides that education for those who couldn’t necessarily afford it from a private school.  They also offer the advantage of pulling these kids out of the standard public schools and allow for smaller classes at those grade levels. 

Dougherty County schools made a move recently towards another environment that will ultimately help improve education, but only with some tweaking.  School choice is, ultimately, all about competition.  However, as schools have to have room, it artificially holds competition to a minimum. 

Gubernatorial candidate Eric Johnson has proposed legislation, and has been pushing for it prior to running for Governor actually, that would attach a funds to a student and follow them no matter where that student goes.  That, coupled with school choice, provides an incentive for schools to do well as more students will want to go there and their attached funds will provide more revenue for that school.  It’s the free market, and it can work in education. 

From an economic standpoint, charter schools would allow for lower property taxes, which would in turn help lure people back to Dougherty County, especially when coupled with the anticipated improvements in educational performance.  And, with fewed kids drawing local tax dollars (remember that charter schools often don’t receive any local funding), more can be brought to bear on the other kids who aren’t in the charter without raising taxes, and possibly while actually lowering them!

Now, I’ve said that education is the silver bullet.  It’s not.  It’s really more of a foundation that other moves can build upon.  Since the Georgia Constitution guarantees each student a public education, and that’s not likely to go anywhere in the near future, let’s make it the best we can.

On one hand, the underlying principle is sound. Basically, create a free market-like environment where good schools will be at capacity and sub par schools will have to improve or continue to lose students. It’s been shown in several studies that money doesn’t equal improvement necessarily, so this would force those schools to step up and get things done.

On the other hand, there are a few problems. First is the fact that this is state law. Education needs to be handled, if it’s government handled at all, at the local level. The County school boards should have been the ones to make that decision or not, since they better understand the needs of their counties.

The second problem is that I’m not entirely sure that this will do any good. Here in Southwest Georgia, our school systems are bad. Shuffling kids within the system won’t necessarily improve the system, especially since the flagging schools know that only so many students can leave.

There’s a lot of work to be done on education in this country. School vouchers, private school tax credits, students picking schools, who knows what the answer truly is. However, I do know that I’m glad to see an option being tried that doesn’t involve throwing more money at the problem. Now, parents can have some say in their children’s education without having to pay out huge sums for private school while still being forced to support public schools.

Will this work? I’m skeptical, but hopeful. It’s entirely possible that the constant shifting of students will force each school to do better and ultimately result in significantly better schools. Only time will tell who’s right and who’s wrong.

“Nearly all children nowadays were horrible. What was worst of all was that by means of such organizations as the Spies they were systematically turned into little savages, and yet this produced in them no tendency whatever to rebel against the discipline of the Party. On the contrary, they adored the Party and everything connected with it.”

“All their ferocity was turned outwards, against the enemies of the State, against foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought-criminals. It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children. And with good reason, for hardly a week passed in which the Times did not carry a paragraph describing how some eavesdropping little sneak – “child hero” was the phrase generally used – had overheard some compromising remark and denounced his parents to the Thought Police.”

Both of the above are from 1984 by George Orwell.

Hmmmm… Sounds familiar to this Libertarian. The Democratic-Republican party has taken over education and has begun the transformation to Big Brother. They have learned, as I’ve heard multiple preachers over the years say, that if you have the children and patience, you have the world you want. I’ve literally got the scars to prove that kids today run amok in schools with no repercussions to them. In the cases I experienced, kids can literally assault a teacher with a potentially deadly weapon and get no more than a ‘stern talking to’ by the Principal. And when they get home, in my experience, you get the parent calling and demanding the teacher be fired.

Parents today fear their kids and this fear results in a lack of discipline due to child abuse laws gone amuck. Working in the church bus ministry I once worked in – long ago – I’ve seen far too many cases of legitimate child abuse. But spanking your kid is NOT child abuse. Forcing them to clean their room is NOT child abuse. Making them eat their vegetables is NOT child abuse.

Republicans gave us NCLB. Democrats gave us child abuse laws gone amok.

As I’ve said, there is no difference in the two.

Both are issuing in the age of Big Brother.