By R. Cort Kirkwood
October 4, 2002

(AgapePress) - The paladins of pedagogy never weary of telling us public schools are "underfunded."

Yet billions of dollars lay around just for the taking, or better yet, just for the giving.

The money is in private hands, and if those who possessed it believe what they say about education, we could abolish public schools and go private.

Annenberg and Other Millionaires
This truth hit home in the obituaries of Walter Annenberg, the media tycoon who died this week. Annenberg, founder of TV Guide, donated millions to education.

According to one obituary, he gave $50 million to the United Negro College Fund in 1990, and in 1993, showered Harvard, the universities of Pennsylvania and Southern California, and his prep school, with $365 million. He gave another $500 million to institutions trying to improve public schooling.

And there's more than one Annenberg. Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Paul Allen, and Lawrence Ellison, worth nearly $150 billion combined, could easily make similar contributions. Moderately wealthy entertainers such as Bill Cosby or Barbra Streisand could cough up millions more.

Instead of throwing $1 billion at the United Nations, Ted Turner could have given his money to public schools.

Aside from individuals, the hundreds of American philanthropies such as the Ford and Rockefeller foundations could easily subsidize a school system.

The question is why they don't, given that the individuals who run these organizations or accumulate this wealth, many of them high-minded liberals or do-gooders, never tire of lecturing us about the import of public schools.

The Problem with Public Schools
Actually, public schools are not important. Education is important, and public schools are only tangentially related to it.

Modern pedagogy is based on a Prussian model designed to redirect the loyalties of the child away from family and church and toward the state. Public schools, meaning government schools, aren't so much concerned about learning as about "making good democratic citizens," as the education "experts" put it.

That's the high-falutin' way of saying their purpose is to hammer the child with values approved by the state. Public education has never been a sound idea. But 50 years ago, at least, the schools imparted knowledge in a milieu imbued with a moral code to which everyone, or mostly everyone, subscribed.

That is no longer true, so parents are locked in unrelenting strife with school boards over pro-homosexual textbooks, sex education, religion (creationism), literature and even dress and deportment.

That, of course, is the peril of using public money for private purposes. Everyone cannot agree on what should be taught or what "values," to use the vulgate, should be imparted.

If all schools were private, parents would control education. That's precisely why the liberals, and some so-called conservatives, would never give up government schools. They want to control the children.

Abolish the Public Schools
We can solve the problem of angry parents and poor education by dumping the failing and fatally flawed public schools.

Let taxpayers off the hook, and ask our millionaires and billionaires to donate money for private schools that reward excellent instruction and academic achievement, instead of "self-esteem" and plundering unions.

The point? The money Annenberg gave to those public schools could have built a network of private schools. Gates could build a school system by himself.

But even while we dream about this wonderful day, the liberal moneybags who scold us about coughing up the taxes for public education should follow Annenberg's example.

Put up or shut up.

R. Cort Kirkwood is a syndicated columnist and managing editor of the Daily News-Record in Harrisonburg, Virginia. He can be contacted at kirkwood@shentel.net.

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