I will appear on your ballot for North Carolina Senate District 17 in 2020. One of my platform issues is School Choice. I would prefer a complete separation of school and state, but we have to start the conversation somewhere. I’m passionate about parents deciding the best method of education for their kid(s). Every child learns differently, and at different paces. There is no one size fits all curriculum, unless I just haven’t discovered it yet (if you find it, please do send it my way). One thing I do know for certain though, is that I do not want the state dictating how, when and where my kids learn. Perhaps some of you feel the same? “What is the purpose of industrial education? To fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence? Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States and that is its aim everywhere else.” ~H. L. Mencken
I began my schooling when I was 5 years old, like most kids. My mom, who was opposed to sending us to public schools, co-founded a Christian school in the little, northeast Texas town in which we were living. She did not want us indoctrinated by the states version of education. My sister went to the same school for all of K-12, while I went from K-9 until we moved to Florida. My mother accepted new employment at another Christian school, where I attended 10th grade, until I got expelled. I certainly hit my “rebellious years” around that time, and wanted to get out of the Christian school system and attend public school. I feel remorseful for the way I interacted with teachers, as I did not give them a good time! I found myself not fitting in very well, and felt isolated at times, like an outcast. Needless to say, I finished my last two years at a public high school. I still didn’t fit in, but it was where I thought I wanted to be. Looking back, I’m thankful for my mother trying her hardest to educate my sister and I the best possible way she knew how to.
Choice is freedom. If a government-run district school is not performing well, then no amount of money is going to help. It’s not necessarily about money! Adding more money to a broken system is like pouring water into a jug with holes punched in the side of it. We must first plug the holes, or we are wasting valuable resources. They either have bad methods that need to be evaluated and changed, or the students will suffer the consequences. Either way, just like any business, if it fails, another business that offers a better service will come in to attempt success where the other business did not. The free market approach to education works the same way. Parents are pulling their kids out of bad schools all of the time, and sending them to better schools, however; the education funds should follow the students, not the schools. If a particular school closes because parents decide to send their kids elsewhere, and the school loses money because their headcount drops, then it’s very possible that it needed to close. I’d like to see a more capitalistic approach to our education system, and expand the North Carolina Opportunity Scholarship Program to all families. Let parents decide what works best. They know their kids better than anyone else. The state certainly is not fit to be our parental guidance.
Thank you for reading. I hope I can count on your support, and your vote in 2020. May the CHOICE be with you. For more information about my campaign please visit my page here.
By: Travis Groo