Under pressure from the religious right, the Illinois Board of Education has quietly eliminated the word “evolution” from state school standards.
Liberals complain that this violates the separation between church state. But they’re getting exactly what they deserve.
For decades, liberals have sought to maintain and expand a government controlled, public school system. In so doing, they turned education from a peaceful, voluntary, private concern into a coercively based, politicized one.
Now the religious right is trying to take over that system. Liberals liked it when they held monopoly power over government-run schools. Now that their power is threatened, they don’t like it. This is sheer hypocrisy.
Don’t misunderstand. I am totally in favor the teaching of evolution — but in private schools. People who don’t agree with evolution should not be forced to subsidize teaching it, any more than people who don’t believe in “Creationism” should have to finance teaching it. And this is what they would have to do whether their children are in public or private schools: subsidize the teaching of ideas that they disagree with.
Developments in Illinois strengthen the case for privatizing education altogether. Give parents large, generous tax credits for education. Even better: shut down the Department of Education (in a total “free-market” a quality education costs very little — look at Benjamin Franklin). Let families and private schools, competing in a complex and diverse marketplace, determine what will and will not be taught in schools of their choice. Let the best teaching methods and ideas win. Stop leaving it to the “educrats” of the left or the right.
Liberals want to have their cake and eat it to. What they fail to realize is that one cannot have a complete separation of church and state, without having a complete separation of education and the state.
