In this chat, we will describe what schools look like in an Absolute Austro-Libertarian. Whether such a system is set up in dissolved countries or it exists in Austro-Libertarian territories, it's irrelevant since it is the same. We mentioned in the lesson The Rights of the Child that because we are responsible for those children we want them to attend school, to get an education. However, in this scenario there really are no educational requirements, which means that we can school them and teach them in any way we want. This is education the Absolute Austro-Libertarian way.
All schools will be private: Elementary, High School, College, University, Post Doc, Technical, Intermediate, Vocational, etc. Because of this, schools will be much freer to determine their own curriculums and we will have a vast array of choices to select from. We may choose to direct children into specific areas or we may choose to let them select their own path. We may start teaching them at a very young age or we may start at a very old age or we may even choose not to educate them at all! That is our responsibility to them, our debt to them. But if we do so they may consider it a damage to their property. It is certainly possible, there is nothing to forbid it.
All education institutes will be for-profit enterprises. And because different people have different financial means there will be all kinds of different offers to cater to all financial levels. Although some people believe that classic education, this is face to face education, is better, the truth is that our all statistical studies are pointing towards a different reality. What those studies are saying is that the success of a child in life depends of two different characteristics, none of which are in the parents or guardians control.
These characteristics are 50% genetics and 50% peer pressure. Therefore, at the end of the day, as long as a teacher is above mediocrity, the success of a child in life due to education depends on the child almost entirely. There is nothing we can do.
Because all educational organizations or companies will have to be at least mediocre in order to be able to charge a reasonable fee, this guarantees an optimum educational level of offers at a reasonable price. Therefore, cheaper education will be as equally valid, valuable and effective as the expensive one. This means that almost every child will have access to good education.
Many education items are already available on the Internet for free. As a matter fact, many homeschool parents do exactly that, they use resources that the free supplemented with books in order to get their kids good and cheap education.
The concept that government education it is absolutely necessary is ridiculous. Such a system is a closed system. You have no access to it in the sense that you can't change anything meaningful in it, but you still pay through taxes for it. In addition, student benefits are being diminished all the time because governments are running out of money and increasing debt.
Your child is forced to spend many years learning things that he or she may not be interested in at all, and that will have zero value in the future of this child. To make matters worse, the subjects of many courses are very inflexible and arbitrary.
You child cannot pick and choose or switch in or out a large amount of mandatory courses. It is obvious at this point, that Elementary and High School education should not be in the public domain in any shape or form. It is not only unnecessary, it is counterproductive. The more public education we have the worse off are our kids.
There are plenty of statistics to show this, particularly in the US’s past where the most educated people at the time where the people that were homeschooled. However, if you look beyond that and look at the educational level in general, you will see that most of the population had an average educational level, and all that achieved without government intervention.
But if you look at the same statistics now that we have government mandated schools, those educational levels have been dropping systematically over time. Furthermore, where they are not, you will usually find cheats built into the system, magical statistical corrections or alterations or variations on a child by a child basis. This cannot be rationally explained. The reason is because the system is politically geared to pass everybody with relatively high marks, which means that even when the child is receiving an education that is going to be useless that education is still substandard and that is really really bad.
The advent of public education has brought nothing but a diminished educational level.
Many people will tell you that poor people cannot afford an education and therefore the state must step in to provide it, and that this education must be paid by taxes. This may be necessary in the failing Democratic systems, however in an Absolute Austro-Libertarian system everybody’s standards of living increase. So the number of people that could possibly not afford an education is going to be tiny indeed, probably well below the current level of educational abandonment, the level of people simply quitting the educational system.
In the Absolute Austro-Libertarian system there will be a revival of education because education will be seen by what it really is. Education is an enabler, it is a ticket for a ride into a better life. Right now education is seen as an obligation that you have to go through and spent a large number of years into, but in reality and through history, education was never that. Education was an enabler, something that allowed you to move forward, to have a better life and to understand more. These are the reasons why people wanted education in the first place. It had absolutely nothing to do with governments impositions. We need to return to that old way of thinking but governments interferes with all of this. Education is not a right, it is never been a right through history; education has always been a wish. Something to aspire to, something to be desired, something to make our efforts worth wile.
Now you know what the real education is and why government intervention interferes with it. Enlighten yourself or not. Your choice.
Note: please see the Glossary if you are unfamiliar with certain words.
