The School Revolution (6 page)

T
he fundamental principle of education is this:
families have the final say in the content and structure of education for their children
. Parents have ultimate authority institutionally in the field of education until such time as the children reach the age of accountability, which is marked by their decision
to pay for their own educations as legal adults. This is an application of the familiar principle I stated earlier: “He who pays the piper calls the tune.”

There is only one way that parents can gain authority over the structure and content of education for their children. They must pay for it. Any attempt to transfer the funding of education to some other institution is by
necessity a call for the transfer of some authority over that education to that agency. The more that any outside agency funds the system of education, the less influence parents will have in determining the system’s content and structure. The federal government tries to get this control with a minimal payment. The day that a school district accepts any federal money, it becomes subject to all the
federal regulations. And then, those who pay most of the piper’s bills (local taxpayers) call very few of the tunes.

Libertarians are fond of the phrase “there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.” Anytime an organization offers to provide something for free, we can be sure this is an attempt on the part of that organization to gain greater control over the institution accepting the
funding. Anytime somebody offers something for free, it’s time to begin a search for the motivations lying behind the offer of financial support. Take a look at previous results of such funding. Examine closely the increase in responsibility and influence that agents of the source of the funding exercised in the administration of the funds. To quote the famous phrase from the movie
All the President’s
Men
, “Follow the money.”

The principle of parental authority over education is an extension of the principle of parental authority over the lives of their children. Parents bring these children into existence, and they are responsible for their care, feeding, housing, clothing, and training.
There can be no separation of responsibility from authority
. Any attempt to separate
responsibility from authority is an attempt to transfer authority to some other agency. Parents inevitably lose authority over the content and structure of their children’s education whenever they rely on other institutions to provide funding for that education.

This seems easy to understand, but the vast majority of parents in the West have ignored the implications of the
transfer of funding for education to the church or the state. They have ignored the inevitable loss of responsibility that accompanies this transfer of funding. They have therefore also ignored the effects of the transfer of authority over their children’s education. They have been content to transfer both responsibility and authority for educating their children. In fact, they have seen it as an
advantage that another institution has offered to take over the educational function long associated with the family.

It is expensive to raise children. Parents are always looking for ways to cut this expense. Historically, they have resisted the idea that the church or state should actively seek to take over the expense of feeding, housing,
and clothing children. Parents have seen this as an admission on their own part of being incapable of providing these services. For generations, there was a stigma associated with taking charitable donations. Men regarded it as a public admission of their failure to exercise responsibility for their families. But this sense of stigma has not been associated with the public funding of education. Parents
have surrendered direct control over the content and structure of their children’s education, and have even consented to laws that make state-run education mandatory. The combination of compulsory education and the offer of tax money to fund local education proved irresistible. The problem is this: Once the principle was accepted, state and then federal agencies intervened to make the same offer
to local school districts that the school districts had made to the voters. They offered to bear an increasing percentage of the financial responsibility of the school systems across the country. Step by step, the centralization of education accompanied the centralization of funding.

Parents have regarded the expense of private schooling as too great to bear, so they have consented to
their own removal as advisers in the public school system. There was a time when parents could mobilize and demonstrate at school board meetings. They could get their way because they had control over the ballot box, which in turn offered them control over the purse strings. But, with the transfer of partial responsibility for local school funding to state governments, and then to the federal government,
parents lost their influence to shape educational policy at the local level.

What I am proposing is a system of education in which parents regain control over the content and structure of their children’s education. They can do so by means of new technology, which makes possible distance learning. In the same way that e-mail replaced first-class mail delivered by the U.S. Postal Service,
the Internet has now begun to replace the educational services provided in local school buildings but funded increasingly by state and federal economic grants.

Parents should understand that they are responsible for the education of their children. They should see it as a moral responsibility. Few parents do, however. This is one of the most
important challenges that opponents of the existing system presently face. The technology of the Internet is available to provide quality education to families at low prices or even free of charge. But parents’ willingness to adopt this technology has been limited. They do not seem to understand the potential of the technological revolution that has already taken place in the twenty-first century.
They have failed to take advantage of the tremendous opportunities for education the Web offers.

Parents worry that they are not capable of teaching their children the basics of reading and writing. The older their children get, the more parents fear they have not been trained to provide a quality education for them. They worry about their own mathematical skills. They worry about their
skills in the area of science. They don’t know much about the history of Western civilization or even the history of the United States. They have some vague understanding of economics, but they have never taken an economics course that in any way shaped their thinking. In other words, by the time the child is twelve or thirteen years old, his parents are ready to fully hand him over to specialists
in education. What they fail to recognize is that far better specialists in education have made available on the Internet teaching materials that students can use to teach themselves, and this material is either free or inexpensive. Of course, parents need to teach the children the self-discipline and responsibility to use those materials. This might not be possible in some cases, but in others,
it will.

The fundamental principle here is moral and legal. The fundamental principle is that the parents are responsible for their children, and that they have an obligation to search for specific educational programs that fit the needs of their families. They must make a determination as to which of the programs is best for their children. Sometimes the differences among children suggest
that there must be different curriculum materials and educational programs for each child. One size does not fit all. Even within a household, there are sufficient variations in children’s capacities and interests that parents must select a wide variety of educational materials. Obviously, I am talking about homeschooling. If the parent wants to pull his children out of the local public school,
and he does not adopt homeschooling, then he has to pay for an alternative school. The school probably has athletic fields, buildings, teachers, air-conditioning, administration, and all the other institutional arrangements common to classroom-based education. The private school is an expensive version of the “free” public school, although with variations in terms of educational content. But
a school like this must cater to a large number of students, which raises the traditional problem of teachers catering to the lowest common denominator. Also, parents find that they cannot afford private education. They also find that their children may not benefit from this or that course, or this or that curriculum program, any more than they would or wouldn’t at a public school.

If parents understood that they are responsible for their children’s education in the same way that they are responsible for their feeding, housing, and clothing, we would see far more attention given to the content and structure of educational programs. Parents would seek out the best programs they could afford. They would sacrifice for the sake of their children’s education in the same way that they
sacrifice for their feeding, housing, and clothing.

In any call to reform the existing educational system, the cost factor should be front and center.
To talk about the need for reform without talking about the cost of reform is meaningless and unrealistic. Libertarians focus on economic costs. When these costs begin to fall, institutional reforms
become not merely possible but inevitable. Price competition works its magic. These words change everything, one family at a time: “I can get it for you cheaper, and better.”

In any institution there must always be someone who has the final authority to determine the operation of the organization. Money does not come with no strings attached. There are always strings attached.
If you follow the money long enough, you find somebody holding a hammer. You find somebody who has the power to say yea or nay to any proposed change in the system. He who pays the piper calls the tune.

With the decline in the cost of homeschooling to levels undreamed of as recently as twenty years ago—with respect to the cost of materials, the campus, and the instructors—parents today
are in a position to exercise authority over the content and structure of their children’s education. Today, the cost in dollars of educating children has fallen so dramatically that the lure of free money is no longer powerful enough to persuade millions of parents to surrender their authority over their children’s education to the person holding the hammer.

I am calling for educational reform based on parents returning to the field of education, money in hand, and demanding the right to educate their children in the way they see fit. The cost of educating the children is not just the cost of buying materials, however. It is also the cost in forfeited time and forfeited money: the parents, or least one of the parents (usually the
mother), must devote time to educating the children. If a parent must leave the workforce to do so, this expense must be borne by the family. These are real expenses, and must of course be taken seriously on a case-by-case basis.

Then there is the additional problem of the latchkey child. Both parents generally now work full time. So their children are left unattended in summertime and
after school. To overcome this problem, parents have to spend money to enroll the children in educational programs or for a nanny to monitor them. So, the total cost of education is larger than is usually assumed.

The latchkey issue usually begins when the child is eleven or twelve years old. The parent is not allowed by society or by the state to let an elementary school child wander
around without supervision, or even stay at home without supervision. It is assumed a child is at risk under these circumstances, and the parent must pay to offset that risk. So, all the money spent to offset the risk of the latchkey child should be deducted from the cost of homeschooling the child. If the parent has to pay hundreds of dollars a month for supervision for a young child, then this
has to be deducted from the net income earned by the parent in the workforce. So, when the parent pulls out of the workforce in order to educate the children, the expenses of supervision of the latchkey child are avoided.

When you consider the cost of getting to work, buying a wardrobe, paying taxes on all earned income, paying for some kind of child care when the child is too young
for school, putting up with the hassle of a boss, and paying to offset the costs of latchkey children, the net benefit of the lesser-income-earning parent remaining in the workforce may not be all that great after all. Parents should calculate very carefully what it costs for one of them to remain in the workforce on a full-time basis. If that parent could earn money at home by means of the Internet,
as well as monitor her child’s progress in education, it may turn out that it is cheaper to homeschool the child than to remain in the workforce. Of course, in many cases it is not financially possible for one of the parents to quit his or her job. But in many cases, it is.

Libertarians have a saying: “You don’t get something for nothing.” This applies to all aspects of education. The
parents do not get free education from the public school system. Somebody has to pay for that system of education. When somebody else pays, parental authority over education declines. It may be worth it to some parents to suffer this decline, but parents who do not want to then have a responsibility to take steps to see to it that their children get the kind of education they think appropriate.

As more Web-based educational technology is released, the costs of private education will continue to decline, and increasing materials will be demanded. This is what has been taking place in the United States for a generation.
This is the economic foundation of a true revolution in education
. The details of the curriculum materials, or the approach to education, or other technical aspects
of Web-based education are minimal compared to the dramatic fall in the cost of educating a child at home.