take your interval

According to the state of California, parents educating their own children is a gift of government, not an inalienable right (what is nowadays?). If any of the 166,000 families currently homeschooling their children want to continue to do so, they must seek out and obtain government approval, approval which I’m sure will come free of charge…

Of course, this ruling will benefit children by forcing them back into an educational system that satisfied so many parents that they took it upon themselves to take over its responsibilities. It will clearly benefit the parents, who will be able to return to taxable work, now that the heavy burden of doing what’s best for their children has been lifted from their shoulders. The only drawbacks are for the government itself, who now has to take on the education of even more children, which means raising taxes to hire more teachers, build more schools, and expand the role of government education, in general. What a great sacrifice on the part of government. On an unrelated note, how well do you think sarcasm translates into print?

Personally, I think this ruling has less to do with education and much more to do with indoctrination. Imagine an educational system where the child isn’t taught to depend on the government from day one, where an unsanitized version of US history could be presented, and the 8 hour workday may not be hardwired into a child’s nervous system. Might be a bit harder to herd those sheep.

Thanks to the Freakonomics blog for linking to the source article.