Letters

   Today there is great concern about the quality of American education, and deservedly so. With crumbling infrastructures, overcrowded classrooms, mandated attendance, and an atmosphere often more akin to a prison than a place of learning, Americans have every right to be concerned about the current situation.

   It's worth recalling that education is NOT the proper domain of the Federal Government. The Constitution grants no power to the Federal Government on the issue of  education, and yet the Government claims and exercises vast powers over the public education system, particularly through the Department of Education, and often doing so in the name of "better education for all American Children". The truth, however, is that the Department of Education (created in the first place as a payoff to
the National Education Association  for its early endorsement of Jimmy Carter's presidential candidacy in 1976) is not only a waste of  taxpayer money to the tune of as much as $70 billion, but it also needs to be abolished if we truly want to uphold the principles of limited Government enshrined in our Constitution.

   This is not even as particularly radical or novel an idea as some may think.
Abolishing the Department of Education was one of Ronald Reagan's campaign  promises when he ran for President in 1980.
Fulfilling that promise is long overdue, and the time to do it is now.

   That's why I support the Separation of School
and State  (http://www.sepschool.org).  Government-run schooling has ruined the educational experience and crushed free-market alternatives through taxes for long enough! Its time to begin a serious national initiative to eliminate this monumental affront to the dignity and freedom of all Americans who have to endure the Government's twelve-year sentence.

   So how can this iniative be achieved? Well, separation is already happening de facto as students choose private- and home-schooling, as well as innovations such  as co-op and on-line schooling. As millions
more leave the "public" schools,  we'll reach a point at which everyone will
want out, and support for Government schools will collapse. However, until that great day, it's up to those concerned about youth rights to fight against the government's wasteful and destructive involvement in education, against mandatory uniforms and other such policies which further compound an immoral injustice with another immoral injustice, and against the compulsory schooling laws which force millions to endure the results of the Government's experimental meddling in education.

In summary, I'd say that given its track record, the best role for the Government in education is no role at all. It's time we liberated the minds and bodies of America's children from the choke chain of government control. And with technology, persistence, and truth on our side, we will succeed.

-Aaron Biterman

And you thought we weren't paying attention....
(Editor's Note: The following was a letter from Melissa McGuire to the Minnesota committe considering the lowering the voting age, as mentioned in The Buzz )

   Riding on the coatails of a dissatisfied generation X I too have felt the abandonment and unease of a generation left to fend for themselves, facing a bleak future of no peace, rainforests, or retirement. The day after my sixteenth birthday I started working. At the same time, I was taking a US History class in which I was informed for the first time that the social security I was paying would most likely not be there when I was old enough to collect it (which would be in my seventies anyway, I was also told).

   This is just one of the issues I realized I had no legal right to fight for, I could not vote. I was being taxed for an issue about which I was not allowed to decide the future. This taxation without representation is not only a violation of rights, it is a vile form of disrespect. The generation of my elders wonders why young people do not respect them and they wonder why the youth of today are more violent and restless than at any other time. It is not because we can't vote, it is because we are smart enough to know that we
are being taken advantage of. We realize that you have no problem
letting us take jobs, make money, help fuel the economy, while at the same time spouting a 'children should be seen and not heard' philosophy; the denial of the right to vote is the effect, not the cause. Giving the vote to youth will  give us the voice we need to shape and be an active part of our future.

   Youth have realized that the world of peace and freedom we want cannot be attained by a generation that does not respect its future.
-Melissa McGuire