Public education as we know it is based on a twentieth century model, that really only worked for a small percentage of time in that century. This new century and the retirement of the Baby Boom Generation is mandating that we re-think education as we know it.
The retirement of the Baby Boom Generation will have a dramatic effect on education as we know it today. Until the early part of the last century education was handled by church, private and home schooling. Abraham Lincoln was in fact home schooled. Government decided in the early part of the last century it could do a better job, and we now have the monoply called the public school system. If parents now choose a church, private or home schooled education for their children, they are penalized by having to pay twice. Their property taxes have already gone into the public school system, and now they must pay again if they want a private education for their child.
Great change must come to public education. Money is in short supply, and as each day passes 8,000 more Boomers wil go into retirement. Because of the Baby Boom Generation's failure to reproduce itself, with each day will also come a greater tax burden on those remaining in the work force.
But the greatest change in public education will come as a result of the pending retirement of millions of Boomer educators. Estimates are of 75% and greater the number of public school teacher that are Baby Boomers and will be retiring in the next twenty to twenty-five years. What will amplify the change is the fact that there are not nearly enough new teachers in the educational pipeline to replace them.
We must create a partnership between the public and the private education systems. It can no longer be us against them. We must not carry the educational formulas from the last century into a new century simply because we resist change. It will take all of our educational resources to get the job done. We must look forward and begin to prepare for these changes. We can no longer turn our backs to a viable voucher system, that will enable parents to find the best education possible for their children.
|
