Category Archives: Social Justice

Public Services - General, Social Justice

Should government get out of the education business?

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Here’s an article sure to get you thinking. It’s called “Enterprising Education: Doing Away with the Public School System” (PDF file), by Andrew Young and Walter Block. Here’s their summary of their argument:

We critically examine the accepted notion that primary education is a legitimate and necessary function of the state. The notion is based upon three tenets: 1) public education is a necessary condition for democracy, 2) the market will not provide equal access and quality of education to all, and 3) education represents an external economy. Each tenet is addressed and evaluated according to its merits. In doing so, we also contrast the fulfillment of the ends implicit in the tenets under state and market provisions. We conclude that the state provision of primary education cannot be justified by these goals, and that market provision is a preferable alternative.

That’s right. They argue that government should get completely out of the schooling business. They don’t consider half-measures like District 150’s contract with Edison Schools a truly free-market solution. In their opinion, all government involvement in education should be completely eliminated and free market allowed to reign supreme.

Shocking? Brilliant? Absurd? I would encourage you to read the whole article before passing judgment on it. I will say that I think they make some excellent points, even if I don’t agree with their ultimate conclusion. But before positing details of my own opinion, I’d like to hear what my readers think of Young & Block’s article.

I love articles like this that challenge fundamental assumptions. Be honest; have you ever heard anyone seriously argue against public education? I hadn’t. I think that going back to square one, so to speak, can help us clarify our thinking about public education and maybe even lead to some novel solutions to its challenges.

City Council, City of Peoria, Social Justice

Random act of kindness . . . from the city

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I found something almost heartwarming in Tuesday night’s city council agenda.

First, a little background:  There are some sewers in older parts of Peoria known as “wildcat” sewers.  These are sewers that were developed privately and do not conform to city code.  The city has a program, known as the Wildcat Sewer Program, that helps residents abandon their wildcat sewers and connect to the city’s sewer system by paying half the cost of connection.

Well, some Peoria residents on North Machin were connected to a wildcat sewer that had collapsed and was completely useless.  But these people were unable to afford even half the cost of connecting to the city’s sewer system, and had resigned themselves to living with the consequences. The city decided to go ahead and connect them to city sewers anyway and pay the whole cost of connection.  You can read a more detailed version of the story here.

I’m impressed that the city has been willing to treat this as an emergency repair and help these residents out.  Kudos to the city for their random act of kindness!

Social Justice

U2’s Bono challenges nation at National Prayer Breakfast

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Say what you want about rock stars who have a “cause,” but I thought Bono’s speech at the the National Prayer Breakfast was really inspired. Not inspired like the Bible is inspired, but certainly inspired by the Bible. He talks a lot about social justice, which is something you don’t hear much about in conservative circles, which is odd since a lot of conservatives are Bible-believing Christians.

In fact, many of my conservative friends who listen to a steady diet of Rush Limbaugh scoff at the idea of social justice. They seem to think that everyone who is poor is poor by their own choice and should just pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. I won’t deny that that’s true in some circumstances, but even so, haven’t we all made some stupid mistakes in our lives? Do we really want to be judged the way someone like Limbaugh judges the poor? I don’t.

I wouldn’t ally myself with everything Bono says, but probably about 95% of it. If you have the time, I encourage you to read his speech and see if it doesn’t put in perspective what it means for us to love our neighbors as ourselves on a national scale. I’ve reprinted it here for you so you don’t have to go searching for it. It’s kind of long, so I’ve put it on a separate page. Just click the “Read the rest of this entry” link below.

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