I recently posted that parents whose kids miss too much school should be fined. There were those who were incensed- why should THEY be fined because their little angels had an unavoidable series of absences?
A week ago, I posted that EBT is a travesty because it isn’t my responsibility to pay for someone else’s bad decisions. Nearly everyone who commented was in complete agreement.
Both topics are the same problem, couched in two different ways. The average cost for public school in the US is about $16,000 per year, per child. Since school is 180 days, it costs about $90 per day to send your kids to school. For a child to attend school from K through 12th grade costs about $200,000 in today’s money. Fining a parent $1,000 because their kid missed ten days of school is merely a refund of the money that was wasted on schooling a child whose parents couldn’t be bothered to make them attend.
That’s free money to those who have kids- free money that is taken from people who either don’t have children, or whose children have long since grown up. I pay over $3,000 per year in local school district taxes. So every day that a kid isn’t in school is my money that has been wasted, yet the parents of that child have no more skin in the game than I, a complete stranger.
The point that I was making with those two posts is this- if it is a waste to give parents free money to purchase junk food, why is it not a waste to pay money for children to attend school, only to watch the educational dollars be wasted when the child doesn’t show up?
I have to pay taxes to feed and educate the children of some fat, lazy bitch who has never had a job, only to see that money squandered and used to produce more fat, lazy criminals who will also need my tax dollars to survive.
Sixty percent of all jobs don’t require more than an 8th grade level of education. That is, they don’t require the worker to perform algebra, know world history, or be able to quote Shakespeare. The high school years are spent preparing the students to attend college, yet only about 61% of high school graduates go on to college, and the graduation rates for them are low.
- 52% of students seeking a Bachelor’s degree will graduate
- A quarter of them take longer than 4 years to do so
- 30% of those seeking Associate’s Degrees will graduate
- 87% of those who begin high school actually graduate
Overall, 32% of those who begin high school will graduate from college with ANY degree (two or four year). It’s a pure waste of money to use high school as a college prep system when they clearly aren’t benefiting.
Here is my proposal:
At the end of the 8th grade, there will be an entrance exam for high school. Those who are in the top half of the scores will be permitted to move on to “college prep” high school at public expense. If you become a discipline, attendance, or academic problem, then you get sent down to be with the lower half.
The bottom half will attend a 2 year vocational school. They can pick between various tracks: auto mechanics, carpentry, welding, or other useful jobs. Included in the common, general curriculum will be classes in personal finance, budgeting, cooking, cleaning, and general skills needed to be a functional adult. Again, at public expense. Once they are done with that, they can enter the workforce at 16.
Kids who don’t make the cut for “college prep” can still attend, but at their own expense. You think your kid can handle it even though he failed the exam? OK, he or she can attend, but we aren’t paying for it. It will cost you $10,000 per year in tuition. If your kid becomes disruptive of the learning of other students, they can be removed and sent over to the two year vo-tech track. Any student who drops out of either program (college track or votech) will be ineligible for any public assistance of any kind until they complete a GED style votech program at their own expense.
19 Comments
Southernborne · September 7, 2026 at 5:01 am
Perfect! I would add vouchers. We need to break up the teachers unions or it will be of no use.
Skyler the Weird · September 7, 2026 at 7:36 am
Public school is subsidized daycare and a jobs program for the Community™. 87% of students are graduated from high school. Of those 87% maybe 40% are literate and able to do simple math but all of them have been taught to feel good about themselves and of course vote for Democrats.
oldvet50 · September 7, 2026 at 7:40 am
Again, I agree with your proposal but would like to go further. Since public schools are uber-liberal even in conservative enclaves around the state, only allow local school board members to be voted in by the parents that have children enrolled in those schools affected. State Board of Education would still be appointed by the Governor. Perhaps those local elections could be held at PTA meetings to ensure only involved parents could have a voice. Maybe if truly local control could be returned to the schools, there would be no need for so many private schools.
I would also suggest a special school be designated within each district for the children that simply will not conform to the established rules – they had those in Texas when I lived there in the early 2000s.
Salty Seadog · September 7, 2026 at 8:13 am
What you have described is how the UK used to be back in the 70’s. I was lucky and was born with brains. That enabled me to get good grades in school to the age of 18, and those grades allowed me to go to university. As we were a poor family I got fully-funded tuition plus a living and accommodation allowance. If we had been wealthier, tuition was still free but I would be expected to pay for accommodation and food. After three years of hard graft and working vacations to buy life’s luxuries, I came out with a good Batchelors degree in engineering.
Those who didn’t get good grades were not expected to go to University, and generally didn’t. They went out to work, or technical college to learn a skill. In my view this worked well. Then our wonderful Prime Minister Tony Blair decreed that this was unfair and ‘elitist’ so everyone should have the chance to go to university. Of course they would have to pay, but loans would be made available.
Guess what happened. Second-grade Polytechnics and Technical Colleges became universities overnight. Many students not up to university educational standards attended as it was easier than growing up and having to work, getting into debt to do so. Universities lowered standards so they didn’t have a high failure rate. Degrees became devalued.
I now interview potential workers and if they only have a Batchelors degree they are at a distinct disadvantage. Entry level for my company is now a Masters, or better yet, somebody who hasn’t gone to university at all but has already been working at any level, that’s how far down we now consider degrees.
I think the Batchelors degree is now teaching students the right way to say ‘do you want fries with that’.
gary gray · September 7, 2026 at 8:34 am
Sorry, but I just can’t get past the fact that all that money is stolen in the first place. Everything after that is just overt emotionalism as you hopelessly try to maintain a sense of control, and pathetic.
Stop the thieving and millions of people will stand up and become adults for the first time in their miserable lives, or die one way or another, and the rest of us can get on with the business of running the only lives we will ever own.
We educated our only child ourselves and my wife wrote a best selling book about it, and was interviewed by the WSJ and Rush Limbaugh.
Public education – you use it for 12 years then (some people) pay for it for the rest of your life.
TJ · September 7, 2026 at 9:46 am
From your lips to God’s ears, my friend.
Terrapod · September 7, 2026 at 9:54 am
DM – you have pretty much described the exact educational pathways used by Germany. They filter out by decision of the teachers and headmaster of the school, whom ends education at age 14 and gets shunted into trades training and those that can go on to university. Sadly, this does not really separate out the brilliant from the ordinary, there are many brilliant students that simply are bored and don’t give a crap. The system shuts them completely out at an early age. Some that get to go onward might do so our of charisma or parents with pull, but not smarts so the system is quite “unfair” but it has worked for centuries. German companies used to have robust apprenticeship programs in coordination, don’t know if those still are as strong as they were in the 60’s.
The one I am more familiar with is the British system (went through it), which filters out students by requiring “O” for ordinary level tests at age 14 to 16 and “A” for advanced level testing at 16 to 18.
If you pass most of the “O” level exams you have met all basic requirements to be a functional adult. If you pass a sufficient number of “A” levels, you qualify for higher education as for entry to Oxford or Cambridge. The student (with able parents) can still make an effort through study pass more “A” levels if they are serious about university, most do not bother and go into the trades after completing secondary which they can leave at age 16 to enter workforce.
I ended up in the U.S. simply due to cost of higher ed. which in the UK was much more expensive than the U.S. at that time for an expat family student (did not have a UK passport due to grandfather not bothering to register progeny – oh well, c’est la vie).
McChuck · September 7, 2026 at 10:09 am
I would wait to start elementary education until age 8, and would restrict high school attendance to the top 15%. I could perhaps be talked into, at most, the top 25%.
landroll · September 7, 2026 at 11:53 am
Outstanding idea! However, as Southernbourne pointed out, there are serious opponents in the way. The least of these opponents would be teachers unions, administratvie persons, social do gooders of all persuasions, civil rights agony aunts and not the least, fat mamas and derelict baby daddies.
Treefarmer · September 7, 2026 at 11:55 am
Like most good solutions that will actually work, yours is unfortunately DOA. It would be seen as too difficult/cruel to implement. The real solutions for other big issues like immigration (legal and illegal), Federal debt, etc. would also be effective and DOA.
Some rando · September 7, 2026 at 12:56 pm
Great plan. If they do the work, those vo-tech kids can start life with a real head start.
C · September 7, 2026 at 3:49 pm
I’ll agree to all of that in exchange for adding one more thing. If colleges are taking public money, gut them of all the stupid liberal arts bullshit.
AL · September 7, 2026 at 5:30 pm
Well said! The fact that it’s highly unlikely to happen doesn’t mean you’re wrong :-0)
Chris · September 7, 2026 at 7:24 pm
That makes so much sense it’s frightening. And I’m wondering why it has never been proposed. Closest I can think of is when a judge used to be able to offer an offender either jail or military service
SiG · September 7, 2026 at 8:47 pm
Instead of everyone taking the 8th grade entrance exam for high school, how about setting an attendance limit, so that if an 8th grader has missed more than a modest number of days (5? 10?) they’re disqualified for high school.
I think I recall you mentioning students you were assigned that would miss more than that in a grading period. Every place I worked in my career had some limit on the number of “sick days” we could take, and it was informally around that amount of days. If you had something major that led to actually being hospitalized or bed ridden at home, there were ways around that. Maybe in this case if a student is out for something well documented, they’re allowed to take the test.
Divemedic · September 7, 2026 at 10:37 pm
Federal law won’t allow that. According to the law, every student has a Constitutional right to a free education. There are all sorts of laws that prevent taking action based upon absences. that’s why there are kids who miss over 100 days and still get passed to the next grade.
Rick T · September 8, 2026 at 3:10 pm
We really need to amend that law to say you get a free education ONCE, not unlimited access until the student turns 18 (and the lower limit should be 14 (end of 8th grade).
Test at the end of 8th grade to qualify for high school. Test at the end of high school to qualify for either vocational training or the top 15% to go to the local Community College for two years.
hh475 · September 8, 2026 at 4:44 pm
I think it’s important to remember that the purpose of public education is not simply to provide the minimum knowledge necessary to perform some particular job. It’s to instill social conditioning. We view this in a bad light because that social conditioning today is aimed at destroying traditional values and promoting socialism/communism.
However, the Founding Fathers saw it the other way, that the only way the Republic could survive would be if the populace were educated to understand and appreciate the values that underpin it. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1816, “”If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”
John Adams was more effusive:
“Wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties; and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in various parts of the country, and among the different orders of the people, it shall be the duty of legislators and magistrates in all future periods of this commonwealth to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries of them, especially the university at Cambridge, public schools, and grammar schools in the towns; to encourage private societies and public institutions, rewards and immunities, for the promotion of agriculture, arts, sciences, commerce, trades, manufactures, and a natural history of the country; to countenance and inculcate the principles of humanity and general benevolence, public and private charity, industry and frugality, honesty and punctuality in their dealings, sincerity, good humor, and all social affections, and generous sentiments among the people. ”
Note that the Founding Fathers believed the public education was necessary to instill republican and Christian values. The contradiction comes in that while the Constitution is specifically based on Christian values, the Founding Fathers also specifically denied that this is a Christian nation. Instead, they opted for the more general “moral” idea of virtue while embedding Christian morality. In general, the Founding Fathers made the same mistake as many in believing that Christian morality was common among all faiths.
As Adams also wrote “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people” He also wrote “Religion and virtue are the only foundations, not of republicanism and of all free government, but of social felicity under all government and in all the combinations of human society.”
Some were more explicit about the specific effect of Christianity. Charles Carroll, a Maryland signatory of the Declaration of Independence wrote:
“[W]ithout morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime and pure … are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of a free government.””
The problem, then, to me, is not that public education should be less available because it is not useful, but instead that it has been perverted into inculcating the exact *opposite* of the values, knowledge, and morality it was originally designed and supposed to promote.
It may be that the only answer is to burn down public education and start over. But I don’t think that making it less available is the appropriate route.
lynn · September 8, 2026 at 5:58 pm
There should be NO EBT. If you need food then we should stock a healthy 2,000 calorie soy based MRE at the post offices. Anyone who shows up at the Post Office and says that they are hungry should be handed one MRE. If they have kids with them then hand them the appropriate number of MREs.
Simple and probably WAY cheaper than SNAP and WIC because it means that people will have to get out of their recliner and do something. But, we will never do this.
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