Government school monopoly goes against the intent of Founding Fathers

TRACKSIDE   (c)     by John D'Aloia Jr.

Our Founders understood what freedom meant and what it took to preserve it. It is not a single struggle, but an on-going one between those who would be free and those who would be slave masters. Samuel Adams said "The truth is, all might be free if they valued freedom, and defended it as they ought. ...If therefore a people will not be free; if they have not virtue enough to maintain their liberty against a presumptuous invader, they deserve no pity, and are to be treated with contempt and ignominy." 

Today, the presumptuous invader against whom we battle for our freedom is not from afar, but rather within, our home-grown Guardians. They are present in Washington in great flocks - they are but buzzards, picking our bones clean. 

We have them in Kansas, elected officials who, with the help of a fawning establishment media, are using Goebbels’s Great Lie thesis to brand you a hater of children if you are against tax increases, a person who wants children to be ignorant. It is, of course, a preposterous connection, one that ignores reality, history, and common sense.

It is time for the electorate to step back, contemplate our nation’s past, apply the Iceberg Law - what you see is not what is going to sink you - and understand the long term implications of "buying" the Guardians’ Big Lie. 

If we sit back and allow them to be voted into office on the premise that only more taxes will ensure an educated population, we are in fact opening the flood gates on any restraint they may have felt up to this point. 

Having won, they will trumpet a "mandate" to siphon off more of our resources into their coffers every year on the same premise - with no improvement in the education of our children. With no improvement, and there will be no improvement as long as there is a government school monopoly controlled by entrenched educrats protecting their cash cow, it will be a repeat performance each year - we just have to put more money into government schools. 

And with each year’s increasing tax burden, The Guardians consolidate their power as citizens lose more of their ability to be independent and self-sufficient. This in itself achieves another goal of The Guardians, a citizenry dependent upon them for life’s necessities.

Last year, a Kansas state senator asked, in floor debate on school funding, just how many dollars per student do supporters of government schools consider sufficient to do the job. He received no response. 

Year after year, the tenor of the debate indicates that "enough" is not in either The Guardians’ or the educrats’ lexicon. The only answer to the question is "more." As a sop to those who believe that the how-much-is-enough question had a finite answer, the legislature authorized a study to determine how much a "suitable" education in Kansas should cost. It should come as no surprise that the consultant’s answer was "more, much more." 

The authors recommended that the per student base aid be raised $760.00 over the current $3890.00 (that is just the base - the average spent per student today is just under $8,000.00,) that the local option budget be used to its maximum, that base aid be adjusted upward each year, and that the state-wide mill levy be raised to 25 mills.

The results were preordained. The definition of "suitable" was a bells-and-whistles definition that was not limited to a core curriculum and facilities needed to educate a child. The doors were opened to include the cost for everything "hot" on an educrat's wish list. 

To cement the desired outcome, all the people interviewed and who served on panels were educrats (with token exceptions.) It is no wonder that the authors could make the statement "interviewees felt that the foundation was too low; they also thought that the existing pupil weights were somewhat low. 

People also felt that the expected local contribution to the foundation program should be increased." and "Their view is that the only way for districts to obtain adequate funding currently is to use the LOB to its full extent." There was no evidence that the authors even considered the costs of programs that are educating children for a lot less dollars than are our government schools.

These same consultants did the work that lead to the present school funding formula. Surprised that they now also recommend another study in four to five years? No snide remarks please about government waste - an ex-superintendent who has seen the report said it appears to be nothing but a rehash of the firm’s first report. The citizens of Kansas have shelled out $250,000 to an out-of-state company to provide "independent" supporting ammunition to legislators who already believe that they must raise taxes and throw money at the educrats.

See you Trackside.