An introduction to educational freedom

C Bradley Thompson

This essay serves as an introduction to yet another series of essays that I will be writing in the weeks ahead, this time on the topic of educational freedom. In my previous 10-part series on the question of rights and education (see hereherehereherehereherehereherehere, and here), I established the moral foundation for thinking about education in a free society. I there explored questions such as:

  • Is there a right to an education?
  • Do parents have an unalienable right to determine how, in what, and by whom their children will be educated?
  • What rights or authority does the government have to educate children?

With this new series, I’d like to turn in the weeks ahead to the institutional question, “who shall educate the children, the State or parents (including their proxies)?” More specifically, I will be concerned to examine the moral and educational status of top-down, government schooling versus bottom-up, parent-chosen schooling.

All of the essays in the series will head toward a twofold conclusion: first, government schooling is immoral and incompatible with a free society; and, second, a free market in education is the only moral system for educating children and the only one compatible with a free society.

I’d like to begin this series with a brief intellectual autobiography on how and why I came to think about these issues and why I care about them so passionately. We might think of this as an exercise in how to think—in principles and on principle—like a Redneck. Welcome to Redneck Logic 101.

Since the day I started kindergarten, I have spent my entire life in school. I attended elementary, middle, and high schools for 14 years! (I know what you’re thinking: the Redneck Intellectual must have, not surprisingly, failed a grade or two. But you would be wrong. Back in the day, Canadian Rednecks had to attend grade 13 if they wanted to go to college. Yes, grade 13! Talk about cruel and unusual punishment.) Then I went off college for four years, then did a master’s degree, then taught for two years at an all-boys boarding school, then went back to graduate school to do a Ph.D., and ever since then I have been a college professor.

I have only been two things in my life: a student or a teacher. I know no other way of life. Learning and teaching is all I know, it’s what I do, and, truth be told, it’s all I care about.