If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Regulate ‘Em

PBS did a story about homeschooling last Wednesday. My favorite quote from the transcript is this, in response to a professor suggesting that homeschooling get “good regulations” applied to it:

Mr. [Bruce] SHORTT [author of “The Harsh Truth About Public Schools”]: I think it’s ironic that someone with an obviously authoritarian agenda is attempting to lecture others, and unfortunately education seems to be one of those areas in which the failures astonishingly insist upon trying to regulate the successful.

An interesting statistic that they mention is that the number of homeschoolers in the country is growing at a rate 10 times that of the general school-age population. People are fleeing the government-run schools in droves, and it’s the government that thinks it should regulate those alternatives.

Instead of figuring out what’s wrong, they seek to regulate what’s working. And they’d never let you keep your own money–directly or in the form of vouchers–to help you out. That’s government at work.

Technorati Tags: education, homeschool, PBS, Bruce Shortt

Filed under: Education • Homeschooling

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