How Would Our Schools Look If the Libertarian Party Had the Majority?

Healthcare and the state of education in the United States are two of the areas of concern among most Americans. We have gone too far, overboard funding everything from the big insurance companies to schools, upper and lower levels; to the point where the budget is spiraling downward with no hope for recovery.

This leads many to wonder, did they make the right choice last November? With Trump’s choice for Secretary of Education proving quite controversial, what would schools look like today if the Libertarian Party had the majority? Based on their own party statements, it would be closer to the Trump ideology, but far different still.

Federal Funding Forces Schools to Act Like Prisons

Libertarians see funding as directly proportional to the way in which our schools are administrated. It is a Libertarian view that schools are fun, much like prisons with a penal code that does nothing to spark the imagination or create a will to learn and progress. Rather, children ‘pass’ because they are pushed through a system with no child left behind and are forced, for the most part, to do the work they do.

What if funding on a federal level stopped? What if parents could control how schools were funded and gave schools the opportunity to teach creatively rather than from a ‘must do’ perspective? Federal guidelines mandate that schools use a punishment system that just doesn’t inspire. If federal funding stopped, maybe kids could finally be inspired to learn and grow.

The Benefits of Putting Funding Power in Parents’ Hands

Funding isn’t complicated if approached in the way corporations fund their projects and you could get such things as wholesale craft supplies for art class and cost effective iPads instead of expensive hard-bound texts. Although some schools do have this technology, the federal government is funding it. What if each school had to raise funds for these amenities? The consensus is that parents would be more involved and excited about their kids’ education.

However, contrary to what the Department of Education has fed us over the course of the past decade or two, the arts would not be side-lined. Music and art might just become as prominent in schools as varsity and junior varsity sports. If kids could pick and choose the kinds of music they are being taught and the kinds of instruments offered in the school band, do you think we would inspire more creative minds to greatness?

A Brief and Somehow Inadequate Summation

What it boils down to, in Libertarian terms, is that we’ve given the federal government completely too much power. While being closer to the right than the left in this regard, there is something to be said for uniting in a common cause. Both the conservatives and the libertarians are working to minimize federal government’s authority where the Constitution says it has no right to meddle. Education and funding are seen as being within the jurisdiction of state and local governments, so let’s put the power back where it belongs.