Where the marketplace shrinks, government power moves in effortlessly, imposing additional limitations on the marketplace, causing it to shrink further a vicious cycle which has been seen to end in catastrophe. Completing the elimination of round wheels, it is now being suggested that parents should not only be relieved of the financial burden that comes with having children, but that they are not the appropriate guardians in any case. Worse yet, the debate is moved, like so much else in our national existence, from the realm of concepts and institutions to the mind-numbing cacophony of political slogans. If we are serious about restoring quality in education, first we need to recall what education is, and what it is not. Contrary to other fashionable slogans and they are truly nothing more than slogans education is neither a right nor an entitlement.
Education is an opportunity, a privilege which comes with advanced and affluent societies.
From the student's point of view, it is a duty, an obligation the day's work. Before time runs out, qualified, honest and dedicated teachers must regain leadership of their profession, now in the hands of political activists, and resume instruction of the time-tested fundamentals. Preferably, in plain English.