It isn’t intuitive that primary and secondary schools should be “free;” that is, financed by the taxpayers as a whole rather than by user fees. Why should I, as an elderly taxpayer with no children in the system, be forced to pick up the tab for other people’s children? The answer is fairly simple; American liberal democracy presupposes the existence of a voting public that is educated, patriotic, economically productive, and reasonably virtuous. All of us who believe in liberal democracy consequently benefit from “free” education which accomplishes this goal. That’s why I don’t complain about it.
The health of the school system is a matter of concern, not just for parents, as suggested by Republicans, but for the community as a whole, since all of us pay for it. Unfortunately, the public schools have become the front line in the culture war, to the detriment of everyone except the extreme right. The GOP has fought this battle for decades by proposing ways to make private education more accessible at public expense; today, Republicans all over the country are upping the ante by increasing surveillance of teachers and creating bounty systems to “stop woke in public schools.” Should we be concerned, even those of us living in blue states?
Yes. Nothing that succeeds in red states stays there. You will see efforts to “stop woke” at the federal level in 2024. You may even see them discussed during the campaign this year.