Educational Freedom
The public education system in the United States is in a state of disrepair. Parents recognize that schools have become jobs programs for administrators rather than centers of learning for their children. When this recognition fell on the deaf ears of school board administrators, parents chose to take a more proactive role in their children's educational path. Now, more than 20 percent of K-12 students are no longer in the public school system. Astoundingly, the percentage of children homeschooled in America has increased 50 percent over the past decade. The parents who made this choice recognized that their children had been trapped in a system designed to serve someone else's interests.
Rather than allowing their children to become cogs in a feudal wheel, families who control educational direction are able to steer their kids towards skilled trades. Under our current system, graduates enter the workforce loaded with student loan debt from degrees which present few options. This reality forces the graduates to accept whatever terms the limited employers offer. We believe that taking ownership of your children's education and breaking free from this system is one of the greatest things you can do. Parents, not credentialed administrators, should decide how their children are raised and prepared for life.
Funding for a Family's Choice
Parents should have the right to choose public, charter, private, religious, homeschool, or hybrid paths which fit the child and the household’s beliefs. Without that freedom, education becomes a product imposed by people who do not share the family’s values or goals. Education should be shaped by love and practical knowledge rather than by institutional convenience.
Representatives should support Education Savings Accounts (ESAs), tax-credit scholarships and other funding mechanisms which enable alternative education. The full amount of public dollars allocated for a student’s education should go directly to the families who choose a different path. These parents can then use those funds for homeschool curriculum, tutors, online courses, co-ops or charter tuition. This is the single most effective way to make alternatives affordable for American families. It also forces the public system to compete on results rather than on captive enrollment.
Defend Parental Rights
Families who choose to teach their children on their own are restricted by state rules which enforce curriculum mandates and implement needless reporting requirements. These rules are written to consolidate bureaucratic power and not to improve the education of our children. Lawmakers should pass clear statutes which declare that parents hold the right to raise and educate their own children. They must also stop any push to force the social mandates onto non-public schoolers. These mandates were the main reason many parents left the public education system in the first place.
Skilled Pathways
Far more young people enter adulthood with employment options when families can choose educational pathways that include skilled trades and practical skills. School funding should explicitly favor programs that teach entrepreneurship, trades, small business basics and self-reliance. Elected representatives should support these programs as they create real value for the local community.
We are not advocating for these steps because we seek to abolish public schools. Our goal is to end the educational monopoly and support an alternative system which helps families better connect and prosper. Societies thrive when education focuses on basic competence and prepares our children for independent, productive lives. When parents can more easily and affordably choose environments that emphasize entrepreneurship and personal responsibility, children are less likely to be shaped into interchangeable parts of the corporate machine.