In an effort to ride the wave of small government, some Kansas legislators are referring to public schools as “government schools”— as if that were an ominous thing.
In our mind, education should be a function of the state. That way it’s a guarantee that every child has access to a free education.
But others think that’s too generous and by intoning the word “government” in an ominous manner lend it a suspect air.
“Our local grade school is now the government school,” Kansas Sen. Forrest Knox wrote in an article last fall, as reported by Sunday’s New York Times.
Prithee Mr. Knox, what is so terrible about public education and are you so against it you would deny the privilege to others?
Many an article has been written about the state senator and his wife, Renee, who homeschools their nine children.
The issue is so dear to Mr. Knox, R-Altoona, that he has proposed several pieces of legislation in its favor, including one this most recent session to allow home-schooled students the right to participate in extra-curricular activities in their local school districts.
Knox also is on record for wanting to create a special class of foster care families, CARE families, who could receive special compensation to homeschool their foster children. What makes these families special is that the parents would be clean, straight and Christian.
Knox’s Senate Bill 158 required couples to be heterosexual, married, abstain from alcohol and tobacco, and attend church or some other similar forum. The proposed law also allowed only one parent to work outside of the home.
So it’s not that Sen. Knox is against state funds being directed to education per se, but that he would rather state funds be directed to those who homeschool their children.
Knox is not alone in wanting to pull the rug out from public, er, government, education.
Sen. Ron Highland, R-Wamego, proposed state funds be directed to those who want to send their children to private schools.
Highland’s legislation, House bill 2741, proposed parents could receive 70 percent of what their school district allots for the education of each student — anywhere from about $6,000 to $8,000 a year, with no oversight as to its management.
Now call us suspicious, but perhaps some parents would use such stipends for purposes other than the education of their children. Just perhaps.
The efforts of both Sens. Knox and Highland were geared to undermine public education and cater to a select segment of the population — with no savings to the state. That’s neither honorable, nor prudent.
Whatever you call it, public education is a mantle the state should not shirk.
— Susan Lynn