LPC 2021 Platform Committee Initial Report
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Revise: V.4 Education

Recommended by a vote of 6 to 5 with 1 abstention

Summary

This makes a number of changes to the plank, including describing the poor performance of the current system, proposing a specific tax credit plan, and removing the reference to forced busing (which is no longer an issue).

Note: The tax credit plan mentioned in this proposal is based on an proposal made by Ed Clark in his 1980 presidential campaign; a more detailed explanation of the concept can be found at: http://www.amatecon.com/etext/ecwp/ed/ecwp-ed-toc.html

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We reject the idea that the financing and control of education is a proper function of government, and call for the privatization of public education in California. The high school dropout rate is 23% with over one fifth of graduates failing to master basic work skills. Every student that does not graduate high school has a greater risk of committing a crime and ending up in prison. The United States is 38th in math, 24th in science, and 24th in reading among industrialized nations of the world. Therefore, to compete in the world economy and to improve education, we advocate the following:

A. An end to compulsory busing. To facilitate maximum educational opportunity and choice an educational tax credit of $3,200 for educational expenses per child for any parent or guardian of a child attending any public, charter, magnet, or accredited private school (accreditation standards as of 2021). This tax credit will disentangle education from monopoly control and foster competition.

B. An end to compulsory school attendance.

C. An end to interference with home schooling, in particular, an end to the policy in some counties of not allowing home schooling parents to file private school affidavits, and an end to the effort by local truant officers and social workers to control who can teach and what they can teach.

D. Repeal of the Proposition 98 funding guarantee for K-14 public education.

E. Unlimited tax credit, equal to the amount of the assistance, for any individual or business sponsoring a person in an educational institution.

F. An end to licensing and regulation of private and parochial schools.

G. Allowing students to attend any school regardless of district boundaries.

H. Resisting the introduction of federally mandated or encouraged national education standards, such as common core.

I. An end to government or tax-funded pre-school programs.

J. A replacement of tax funding of government schools, at all levels, with tuition or other voluntary means.

KJ. An end to government subsidy of private education and an end to all government subsidies to students, such as Pell Grants and the federal student loan program.

LK. An end to tax-financed research (such as research in military hardware and techniques, farming techniques and applications of high technology) in California educational institutions.

ML. Retention of tax-exempt status for all private schools, including religiously affiliated schools.

NM. Abolition of California's monopoly lottery system for finance of education.