A Thought Experiment

Let’s do a thought experiment. In this experiment we’ll do to our education system what the Affordable Care Act has done to our health care system.

We begin this experiment by imagining our country without a public education system for grades K - 12. Instead, all schools are privately owned and operated. Families pay a considerable amount of money to enroll their children in these private schools. People below a certain income level cannot afford to educate their children.

Other countries around the world have solved the problem of educating their citizens by creating public schools. In these public school systems, every child can attend school and their education is paid for by taxes. Everyone is taxed to help pay for the education system, including those who have no children and will never have children. Imposing an education tax on everyone regardless of whether they have children is supported by a belief that an educated populace benefits all people in society. Because the government pays for everyone’s education, this system is called a single-payer system.

But American conservatives criticize these public education programs in other countries as being socialist. Indeed, they are socialist, but they do provide the opportunity for all their citizens to receive at least a minimal level of education. In the U.S., tens of millions of children receive no education, while every year millions of American families incur crushing amounts of debt while trying to help their children escape a bleak future because they lack an education.

Responding to pleas to open up the education system so all children can get an education, a controversial American president offers a solution. He knows he can’t get support for public schools, because there are enough conservatives in both parties to block a single-payer system. But he manages to get through Congress a new law called the Affordable Education Act.

Under this new law, every family is required to send their children to a private school. All schools will offer five levels of education, with course material defined and regulated for each level of education. The levels, from most to least expensive, are Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Barely Literate. All families must participate in the AEA system or pay a tax penalty which grows larger with each passing year. Low income families receive a tax credit to help them pay for their children’s education.

Almost no one is satisfied with the new law. Conservatives bash it as socialist and an unwanted government intrusion into the education system. Progressives bash it because it doesn’t go far enough in helping the poorest families. Conservatives promise to repeal the new law and go back to the old system. Progressives point out that under the old system, 50 million children received no education, and say that even flawed as it is, the new law will allow many of those 50 million to receive at least a minimal education.

What do you think? Should we:

A. Return to a system of all private schools.

B. Keep the new law and see what happens.

C. Adopt the European system of public schools funded by taxes.