Bailout the Schools???

Everyone wants a bailout these days. Once Congress and the Bush Administration made the misguided decision of bailout out AIG and the banking industry, every other industry — not to mention governments and individuals — decided that they deserved some money from the federal government.
In yesterday’s Albuquerque Journal, Christine Trujillo
President, American Federation of Teachers-N.M, made the case for a government “bailout” of education. While I couldn’t disagree more with her overall point, the truth is that she makes no factual argument for the “bailout.” Rather, she makes some pointless statements about societal changes that she argues make educating children next to impossible.
The biggest red-herring is that education suffers from inadequate spending. This is the argument some are making for a major gross receipts tax hike for additional education spending, even in these tough economic times. As Dr. Harry Messenheimer has pointed out, education spending per-capita has increased dramatically in recent years. Check page 6 of this study.
There is no need to bail out education with a tax hike of any kind. Instead, like the Big 3 automakers, education will be forced to improve and become more efficient with competition and by giving consumers greater freedom of choice.