American schools – more and more are little but a joke

Schools are supposed to educate – to teach people (especially children).

Public schools, that is, government-run, tax-funded, schools are constantly demonstrating that they are generally incapable of doing so. Oh, there are exceptions to this. Schools which have outstanding, loving, and skilled teachers who can educate those that they teach. Some administrators who understand their role to support parents, teachers, and students. But more and more, the quality of schools across the Fifty States is declining.

The attempt to abolish the US Department of Education is in large part driven by understanding this. The decay has gone on for so long, the rot is likely unrepairable. As we have written elsewhere, there comes a point when a system must be abandoned. Broken up for scrap so that anything worthwhile can be put to wise and beneficial use. We believe we are at that point.

One major problem with modern GRTF schools in 2025 is mission creep: the schools are expected to – indeed, forced to – provide more than just the old Socratic idea of a teacher teaching a student. (With or without them both sitting on a log.)

Schools are expected to provide social activities – such as sports programs and concerts and other entertainment (while keeping the students occupied and presumably out of mischief). Schools are expected to provide medical services to the students. Increasingly schools are providing “medical” services to students without parental knowledge or permission. And schools provide school meals to students, more and more as an entitlement: a form of welfare.

Hence we see things like this news story.

Tax-Funded School Meals: Yesenia Robles discusses “a bill that would ask voters to approve new funding for universal school meals.” Background: “In 2022, Colorado voters approved a ballot proposal to make breakfast and lunch free for all students regardless of family income. The program was funded by lowering a tax credit for taxpayers making more than $300,000 a year, meaning they pay more in net taxes. But many more students than the state projected are eating the subsidized school meals. That means the cost has also gone up and has led legislators to look for more funding.”

The correspondent who shared this with me had his own take: “Why further subsidize relatively wealthy families?”

I call garbage on this, for multiple reasons.

First, the Colorado State Constitution says that the general assembly (Colorado’s legislature) is to “provide for the establishment and maintenance of a thorough and uniform system of free public schools throughout the state, wherein all residents of the state, between the ages of six and twenty-one years, may be educated gratuitously.” To claim that “education” includes feeding them, transporting them, providing recreation (sports, especially) or anything other than teaching them is a gross expansion of authority that is unconstitutional.

Even the initial ballot initiative back in 2022 is unconstitutional on its face. And immoral. And demonstrates one of the great dangers of democracy: voting themselves largess from the public purse.

Second, the evilness of this action has nothing to do with subsidizing some people at the expense of others – though that is wrong. What is evil is that money is to be stolen from some people to pay for other people’s support.

Third, this is not a libertarian position – either minarchist or anarchist: it is an expansion of government. The person writing this claims to be a libertarian – indeed, a disciple of Ayn Rand.

Fourth, one of the major accomplishments of this bill would be to add parasites to the public dole: and no, not just the children eating the food (or throwing it away), and not just the parents or guardians who don’t have to pay for food for their children. The real parasites are the contractors selling the food, selling the equipment, selling the tableware and everything else. And of course, enjoying the benefits of graft and corruption, which have plagued the school lunch program since they were invented.

Yes, there are parents who fail to feed their children – and even more who fail to feed their children in a wise manner. But there are many other ways to address that problem. Ultimately, this idea will result in the same sort of explosive government growth and increased spending (and therefore, stealing) that what the voters approved in 2022 created, leading to this even more stupid proposal.

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Source: https://freedombunker.com/2025/03/25/american-schools-more-and-more-are-little-but-a-joke/