Let’s “Outsource” education…

Over 60% of the 2011 Indiana budget is going to whatever politicians and their lobbyists call “education.”  Over the past several decades, the percentage of those billions that gets to the classroom has dropped to less than 60%.  Our embarrassingly high percentage of administrative buildings and personnel, and the absurd cost of sports programs that serve a tiny percentage of elite students is inexcusable as average students get fat and fall behind their overseas peers.  American schooling is by far the most expensive, and among the least effective, in the world.

So it’s fine that there’s been talk of school funding, teachers’ unions, pensions, student nutrition and the taxation and spending rules that we’re told have something to do with learning.  Yet amidst all the chatter over vouchers, Charter Schools, “investment in our future,” and of course, sports, I’ve so far heard nothing that is both workable, and legal.

It is suspicious that Article 8 of Indiana’s Constitution appeared on the last day of the 1851 constitutional convention without a word of debate.  The person who transcribed the article (perhaps he wrote it himself?) was Robert Owen, Jr., son of the New Harmony commune’s founder, and ally of the “progressive” educator, Horace Mann.  Yet commie plot or not, the Indiana Constitution’s Article 8, Section I, does now “provide, by law, for a general and uniform system of Common Schools, wherein tuition shall be without charge, and equally open to all.”

The constitution and historical context are unmistakable.  “Common Schools” were the uniform (as in identical) system of tax-subsidized schools promoted by Mann as the “ladder of opportunity” to educate poor kids without religious influences.  And Common Schools are not compulsory; parents are free to choose non tax-funded alternatives.  And the phrase, “tuition shall be without charge,” has been clarified many times over the years as meaning only tuition.  So legally, even poor parents must find money for books, lunch, transportation, and in fact everything but tuition.  Sports were certainly not part of school.  Besides, that’s what parks and public gymnasiums were for; so that even kids who weren’t in school had something to do.

Article 8, Section 2 mandates a Common School Trust Fund derived from corporate taxes and other statewide sources that forbid any local funding, like personal property tax, because we don’t need the brute force of politics to achieve inequality between rich and poor areas.  In fact, Article 4, Section 22 says, “The General Assembly shall not pass local or special laws… Providing for the support of common schools, or the preservation of school funds.”

Of course Article 8 wasn’t necessary.  There already was a rapidly-developing system of “Free and Fee” schools, but almost all of the tuition-free schools were run by churches.   Churches had been America’s Department of Health, Education and Welfare before we gave everything unto Caesar and his non-voluntary collection plate.  However, churches are, as you have no doubt heard, religious.  And Article I, Section 6 of the new constitution decreed that “No money shall be drawn from the treasury, for the benefit of any religious or theological institution.”  So yes, Indiana legally gave at least something unto Caesar by creating Common Schools.  But at least the intent was understandable, and the clearly-written rules for schools and their funding was better than what we’re doing now.

Both state and federal constitutions forbid politicians and bureaucrats the near-monopoly and practical mandate power over education they now exert.  And though many of us are opposed to any socialized education on moral, religious and practical grounds, Indiana’s original socialists came up with a far more reasonable scheme than what we’ve devolved to now.

Maybe online education could break our governments’ unconstitutional, monopolistic stranglehold, and drop the now crazy costs.  Maybe homeschooling will take off and parents would have better accountability for their children and our collective future.  And maybe, just maybe, we could also do the constitutions as written, and provide Common Schools, funded as described in Article 8 of the Indiana Constitution (Common School endowment fund, with NO PERSONAL PROPERTY TAX INVOLVED) so that schools would be identical for rich and poor.   I hope so.  It would be the best thing to happen to Hoosier kids in decades.  I wish I could be the one to sell it.