People who support the vague democratic principle of public schools, funded by the entire tax base, will often say that education is a right and that our system of government depends on an educated populus. (In a future article, I hope to touch on some interesting moments in the history of education that shows the fallacy of this argument.) They will go on to pronounce how the only way to ensure equal opportunity for education is to have this enormous, shared tax as well.
But supporters of private schools often argue, correctly, that choice should be involved when a parent sends their children to a school. The very idea that parents should be perceived as customers, with the students as the resultant products, seems obscene to many public school supporters. Read the rest of this entry »
