The murder of 17 innocent high school students in Parkland, Florida reminds us that public schools are dangerous. Too dangerous for children.
Yet there are pro-public school ideologues who refuse to face the facts. They shut their eyes to reality. They spout their slogan: “Public schools don’t kill public students. Killers kill public school students.” We have heard this for 50 years. Yet the killers are always one of these: (1) enrolled public school students, (2) public school graduates, or (3) expelled public school students. It’s time to turn a deaf ear on the refrain about public schools not killing public school students.
When was the last time you heard of a mass execution of students in a private school? The next time will be the first.
When did anyone hear of a dozen or more corpses lying on the floor of a homeschool co-op?
The facts are inescapable. Students in public schools are at risk. Terrible risk. Unacceptable risk. There is no excuse for this any longer. None. The statistics are clear. Students get gunned down only in public schools.
Yet defenders of public schools never cease spouting their slogans about a constitutional right to taxpayer-funded education. They claim that this is guaranteed by the Constitution’s general welfare clause. This is preposterous. There were no taxpayer-funded day schools in 1788, not even a military academy. There wasn’t even a school at West Point. It was a fort. West Point was where Benedict Arnold had been in charge.
We need to organize . . . now. We need to go to the voters . . . now. We need to tell them what they already know but refuse to say in public: it is time to ban public schools once and for all. No more excuses. No more gradualism. Gradualism kills! In every town,…