In Brief: Elections Will Never Be Fair When…
As long as schools are pushing politics and conservatives don’t stop it, conservatives are at a disadvantage.
School choice is one of the more basic planks of the conservative platform. Fundamentally, the one-size-fits-all public education system is broken and we need more choice. John Dill, director of the Merit Academy school board and a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force, agrees. He writes of the political implications:
Those on the right cannot march out bravely every two years to conduct a tactical fight with an opponent that is operating strategically, battle to a draw, then rinse and repeat two years later. A longer view of how this occurred and how the nation remains deadlocked is required.
Schools are a key long-term way to turn this cycle around. It won’t be fast. It has taken the nation about a century of increasing government control of education to get to this point. But we need to break the indoctrination of the young. Otherwise, we’ll continue to be forced into retreat.
The way to expose illogic and reduce the media’s capability to demonize traditional viewpoints is to teach kids independent thought. Those independent thinkers will not come from a one-size-fits-all schooling system. Arguing against an adversarial educational ideology places conservatives 13 or more years behind the power curve in a campaign.
Thus, Dill says, “Creating educational options is the long-term answer” to many of America’s problems. He talks about the amount of money conservatives spend on failed candidates and how many schools that same money would open. His own Merit Academy is an example, as are numerous others, of places where America’s 50 million schoolchildren can learn better lessons than public school indoctrination.
Reversing our national decline won’t be an easy or fast fix. Strategy requires a deep effort, one focused on creating a better informed, wiser electorate that will make better long-term policy choices. …
Regardless of how one defines the nation’s problems, better education is the beginning of the answers.
Dill concludes:
You might be mad about Election Day. If so, were you mad two years ago as well? Stop getting mad and start getting smart. Think not only short-term but also long-term. Find a parent group trying to change the future, one student and one school at a time. Support them with not just kind words and thoughts but also with your volunteering and money.
Think long, think strategically, think big picture, then act in a way that will put the nation back on track. It took us a long time to dig our nation into its very deep hole, and your support for school choice can shorten the time it takes to fill it back in.
