The Free Hornet
09-16-2013, 10:49 PM
This idea occurred to me for potentially dealing with public schools and the erosion of students' rights.
Schools routinely request donations from parents and these go well beyond #2 pencils and snot rags:
If you do decide to make a “voluntary” donation, take solace in knowing that your pocketbook’s plight could always be worse. Reich reported that the Hillsborough (Calif.) Schools Foundation asks parents for $2,300 per child. “Hillsborough is not an anomaly,” Reich wrote for the Times. “The foundation supporting the Palo Alto school district asks for $800 per child; in Menlo Park, it’s $1,500; and at the Ross Elementary School in Marin County, it’s a staggering $3,400.”
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865585863/Public-school-parents-If-asked-to-donate-money-3-things-to-consider.html?pg=all
That known, what if as a precondition to any donation, a parent or parents required the school to consent to a legally binding Bill of Rights and/or additionally specific conditions that would protect the child from unjust punishment and/or expulsion. Some of it can even be modeled after the teachers' contracts (somewhat as a lark, but seriouser). E.g., why should your child's teacher have more protections than your child? Why would any sane individual donate to such an institution?
Now I know the best answer is to not use a public school, but that may not always be practical or desirable. More so, a mechanism to reform public schools could be seen as harmful to liberty since removal of coercive financing is a preferred solution.
Unless parents did this en masse, I suspect no such agreement would ever be signed. So the parents wouldn't donate money or paper towels, buy/sell all that overpriced catalog crap they push out once a year, and no money for other fund raisers. Win win win.
Just a thought...
Schools routinely request donations from parents and these go well beyond #2 pencils and snot rags:
If you do decide to make a “voluntary” donation, take solace in knowing that your pocketbook’s plight could always be worse. Reich reported that the Hillsborough (Calif.) Schools Foundation asks parents for $2,300 per child. “Hillsborough is not an anomaly,” Reich wrote for the Times. “The foundation supporting the Palo Alto school district asks for $800 per child; in Menlo Park, it’s $1,500; and at the Ross Elementary School in Marin County, it’s a staggering $3,400.”
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865585863/Public-school-parents-If-asked-to-donate-money-3-things-to-consider.html?pg=all
That known, what if as a precondition to any donation, a parent or parents required the school to consent to a legally binding Bill of Rights and/or additionally specific conditions that would protect the child from unjust punishment and/or expulsion. Some of it can even be modeled after the teachers' contracts (somewhat as a lark, but seriouser). E.g., why should your child's teacher have more protections than your child? Why would any sane individual donate to such an institution?
Now I know the best answer is to not use a public school, but that may not always be practical or desirable. More so, a mechanism to reform public schools could be seen as harmful to liberty since removal of coercive financing is a preferred solution.
Unless parents did this en masse, I suspect no such agreement would ever be signed. So the parents wouldn't donate money or paper towels, buy/sell all that overpriced catalog crap they push out once a year, and no money for other fund raisers. Win win win.
Just a thought...