Education is key to success and leads to a rewarding quality of life. Growing up, I attended public school in a major city. As I approached school age, my parents shopped around for a neighborhood that was “zoned” to include a “good school”. That was my generation’s version of school choice. Not all “free” public schools were equal and most people understood that “equality of opportunity”, if it really existed, didn’t guarantee equality of result.

It was also understood that “free” public schools aren’t free at all. If you own a place of business or a place to live you are compelled by law to pay the property taxes that fund “free” public schools. If not you won’t own that property for long. If you rent, your rent reflects the inclusion of those taxes. Further, school attendance isn’t optional - it’s mandatory. If you do not attend, the government imposes penalties on students and parents.

With all that said, the ideal that all children have the opportunity to attend school with an equality of opportunity not dependent on the ability to pay is an appealing one. However, few people consider the pitfalls. Schools run by the government are subject to the same partisan politics and social agendas as government itself - and the same lobbyists. Parents often find themselves with few options in the face of these hard realities. Some even feel violated.

I’ve already reported previously on the Jarrod Marcum case - the 14 year old Logan Middle School Student who last year was suspended because he wore an NRA T-shirt with a picture of a hunting rifle on it. After it was determined that he not violated any rules he was reinstated. Said Jared “What they’re doing is trying to take away my rights, my freedom of speech and my second amendment.” Said his father, “You can take the firearms out of the equation, what this about is fundamental rights.” Jared still had to endure a trip to the local police station.

Then there was the incident that happened in Mobile, Alabama as reported by local TV station KSN on October 9th.  According to the report, a local school sent a 5-year-old home after an incident in class. The incident? According to her mother, “They told me she drew something that resembled a gun. According to them she pointed a crayon at another student and said ‘pew pew’.” (One report dubbed the incident: “assault with a deadly crayon”). The news report added that Rebecca “was furious that her 5-year-old daughter was forced to sign a school contract stating she wouldn’t kill herself or anyone else at school” and that “her daughter was then given a questionnaire to evaluate her for suicidal thoughts and given a Mobile County Public School safety contract to sign stating she wouldn’t kill herself or others”. Really?

The report quotes the girl’s mother, “While I was in the lobby waiting, they had my 5-year-old sign a contract about suicide and homicide. There should be a different way to handle this situation. If this is protocol it needs to be looked at again.” I’ll say. The report concludes, “Rebecca is pushing to have the incident removed from her child’s record. She says school officials have requested her child see a psychiatrist. She refused”.

One might be tempted to write this off as an isolated incident, a crazy one at that, were it not for this press release published on the US Department of Health & Human Services website on September 22nd: “Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell announced today $99 million to train new mental health providers, help teachers and others recognize mental health issues in youth and connect them to help, and increase access to mental health services for young people. These funds were included in the President and Vice President’s “Now is the Time” plan to reduce gun violence by keeping guns out of dangerous hands, increasing access to mental health services, and making schools safer”. Great, the federal government will determine the mental health of your child and that information will wind up in a database that follow him or her throughout their entire life.

And then there’s the politics. Education is one of those areas where there should be a non-partisan approach. However, according to Bill McMorris, writing for the Washington Free Beacon, “The nation’s largest teacher’s unions blew about $60 million of their members’ money on the disastrous 2014 midterm election”. The reason it was “disastrous” - for them - is that virtually all of the $60 million was spent on Democrats, doing “little to stem the Republican wave”. McMorris further states, “The NEA was the second-largest Super PAC donor of the 2014 cycle, spending more than $22 million to aid Democratic candidates for federal office. The federal spending was on top of an estimated $28 million push at the state and local level”. It went on to say that “The AFT (American Federation of Teachers) had said it planned on spending $20 million during the 2014 cycle, a ten-fold increase from the $2 million it spent on 2010”. Here in West Virginia, the local AFT spent heavily on Democrats.

So, I pay taxes that along with other taxpayers funds a “free” education for all. The taxes I pay fund the salaries of teachers. Those teachers then pay their union dues. The union then spends millions in support of candidates that are running against the candidates I support. In other words, government has created a situation where I am forced to fund those that I oppose - as are millions of other taxpayers. There are teachers caught in the same quandary. Does anyone see an ethical problem here?

Things have changed since I went to school. I don’t remember having all of these distractions. However, that was a long time ago - government was much smaller then.