Get schooled

Let's give the libertarians their paradise.

It's fascinating to watch libertarians trail on about the inefficacy of the public school system as if this were somehow a point in the favor of ditching the system for a private, for-profit model. This is Thomas Frank's "wrecking crew" principle in action; after giving the economic rightists 30 years to run the government, one really shouldn't be surprised that they've proceeded to run the public civics system into the ground.

Indeed, a privatized school system would exacerbate all the problems associated with the present system while solving little and introducing new ones. The current de facto state, "you get the education you can afford," would be even further imprinted. Anything deemed inessential for producing good worker bots for the corporate oligarchy, like expensive liberal arts programs, would be slashed for everyone but the aristocratic class.

Libertarians, I suppose, are the one grouop of people who might legitimately claim that their ideology has never really been tried. Of course, it's proving quite difficult to convince many people in democratic countries to return to monarchism. At least there's always Somalia, or perhaps Estonia, though the latter still has public schools as best as I can tell.;