Privatization, not more money, will fix public education

The state of public education in California is unconscionable. Indeed, little or no progress has been made in the quality of education in our entire country since the scathing 1983 report, "A Nation at Risk." Yet, California continues to wallow in the cellar, ignoring calls for real reform, while students continue to be robbed of their education at relentlessly higher costs to taxpayers. Still, the latest study says it will take $1.5 trillion per year, 25 times current extortion costs, to make it better.

Lack of funding is not the problem. The education establishment is the problem. Fundamental education has been replaced by social and political ideologies, which have nothing to do with the necessary skills students must have function in society. Therefore, most students who graduate from high school are functionally illiterate. That, along with demands for more money is simply criminal.

In order to communicate properly and hold a job, our children must be proficient in reading, writing and math. They should also be educated in basic science, geography, history and government. And they should be schooled in good behavior and relationships, and law and order. Replacing social and political indoctrination with functional education is what our students need, and they could have it without pouring more money into the black hole of the education establishment.