An Educational ‘Amen’

Neal McCluskey at the Cato Institute Blog has a must-read post on how universal vouchers or tax credits could be used to end the high-stakes political creation-evolution debates. This is an argument I’ve made before, and I’m glad to see it “up in lights,” so to speak:

Of course, the creationism conflict in Kansas – and, indeed, across America – isn’t a prize fight. It’s a battle between the deeply held values of regular people, and unlike Mike Tyson or Evander Holyfield, Kansas children, parents, and other citizens aren’t being richly compensated for the punishment they’re taking. They’re fighting because they have to. They all have to support one system of public education, and they all, rightfully, want their beliefs and morals respected.

And so the fight goes on, into rounds we lost count of long ago.

Thankfully, there is a way to end this death match, but it will require that both combatants do something that so far they’ve seemed unwilling to consider. Rather than exchanging blows in perpetuity, they could agree to let each other have what they want. They could cease forcing all people to support a single system of government-created and government-run schools, and implement school choice, giving parents control over their children’s education by letting them pick schools that share their values.

It just makes so much sense to me. It’s a short post (I clipped a little more than half of it) – go ahead and read it all.