The Education debate in The Bahamas rages on

by Rick Lowe (http://www.webloghamas.com)

Over the years, I've found that many of the political elite seldom address criticism and suggestions for change without trying to drag the other party through the mud. And rarely do they provide any alternative solutions to improve things.

Take education in The Bahamas for example.

It is well known that we are failing our children yet when it was recently proposed that we might consider privatising the public schools, the suggestion was met with scorn.

Yet the School Voucher and privatisation idea has been around for many years, it's just the special interests do not want it to take hold. 

As we call each other names the educational system continues "Stacking the Deck for the Poor..." as a Brookings Institute article says...

"Sometimes acting on behalf of the disadvantaged, the have-nots of the political process, requires unusual courage, a willingness to incur the disfavor of the truly powerful. It comes down in the end to determining our public priorities—politics, as they say."

It seems that one must be politically correct and dare not challenge the status quo, but as the late economist Arthur Seldon said:

"Above all the IEA was not deterred by tired defences of established practices-"politically impossible," "administratively impracticable," "socially unacceptable." Its Founding Fathers saw behind the circular reasoning, for it is ideas that can make possible, practicable and acceptable what reason shows to be desirable, timely, overdue".

I'm comforted by these words.

For more on the voucher and privatisation of public education see these links:

Cato - Public Schools: Make Them Private

The New York Times - What Business Can Teach the Schools

The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice