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Special-interest groups control public education, says attorney

An advocate for removing all Christian children from secular government schools says school vouchers will not be a widespread option for those seeking an escape from public schools -- at least not in this lifetime.

In 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that school vouchers were constitutional. Bruce Shortt, author of The Continuing Collapse, says many school choice advocates believed this would create an alternative for parents, many of whom cannot afford private schools. But he says it is unfortunate that that is not happening -- and he attributes that to powerful special-interest groups that surround the government school system.

"And I think that if parents want to be honest, they have to understand, or realize, there will be no widespread voucher programs within our natural lives," says Shortt. "And that's because the special interests surrounding government education are fighting them tooth and nail."

Shortt says a modest voucher program in Florida passed, but was struck down by that state's highest court. In Utah, voters approved a voucher program, but it is not in use because the teacher's union is working to stop it. Shortt says the public school monopoly has a cash flow of more than $600 billion a year.

"And they will do whatever they feel they need to do to protect that cash flow. Because in truth, the public schools are no longer primarily education institutions," he says. "They are first and foremost a mechanism for allocating about $600 billion a year among various special-interest groups that constitute the groups that support the public education monopoly."

And Shortt says it is also a mechanism for allocating privileged ideological access to children, such as radical feminism, the homosexual agenda, and environmentalism.