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My Letter to Betty Baye

Theresa Camoriano

“But somehow I don't imagine these people being willing indefinitely to pay tuition for their kids' private and religious schooling and also to pay taxes to educate other people's kids in a public system in which they believe they have no stake.” – Betty Baye

For a long time, I have been trying to understand why people would be willing to continue sacrificing our children’s future at the altar of government schools, and your statement has helped enlighten me.  You want to keep middle class families enslaved in the government school system because otherwise you think they will not continue paying to educate poor children.  That is very sad.  Especially since the government schools do the greatest harm to poor children, who currently have nowhere else to turn. 

While I can see that freedom is a frightening thought for you, you might want to consider how much better off all children, rich and poor, would be if they had more choices.  If there were real competition and if the money could flow to the schools that did the best job educating children, then there would be all kinds of innovation and all kinds of educational options to better serve all children. 

Compare the way we provide education to the way we provide food.  Middle class people continue to support food stamps, even though they don’t use them, and poor people are free to use their food stamps in any grocery store; they are not limited to buying rotting produce in a government-run grocery store.  But using the analogy with education, you would say that all children should be forced to eat the rotting produce in government-run grocery stores in order to prevent poor children from starving.  That just is not so. 

None of our children should be forced to eat the rotting produce of government schools.  Their educations and their futures are too important to enslave any of them in the government education system.

All children, rich and poor, deserve the better opportunities that would be available if they were freed from the government monopoly school system.  And poor children would benefit the most from such a change.  I give money to School Choice Scholarships to help give options to poor families.  I have seen the difference with my own children.  Anchorage School nearly destroyed my older daughter, who has learning disabilities. 

No school is perfect, but there is nothing like having a choice.  Government schools already have your money, so they don’t have to worry about providing a quality service.  They are the “experts”, and you have no choice.  But private schools have to serve you, or you will take your money somewhere that does a better job.  Children need those choices.  And poor children especially need advocates to promote their freedom, not their enslavement.  It is a shame that you, who make the most noise about the evils of slavery, would be the one promoting the continued enslavement of children in the monopoly government schools.  Very sad.

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