Trent Franks: “I cannot agree more. Several things occur when we empower parents as essentially the customers of education. We say…”

“I cannot agree more. Several things occur when we empower parents as essentially the customers of education. We say education should not be a customer-driven thing. I suppose we can say that about anything; but one thing is sure, when we do have a market-driven situation, we get better quality, greater innovation, and a drastic reduction in costs. I am convinced that those same things would happen for the educational system in this country if we injected parental empowerment and competitive excellence into the system. But a fourth thing occurs, which is when we empower parents to choose their children's education, those parents with a philosophy of one kind are able to direct their children in that direction. Those with a philosophy of a different kind can do something else. I am afraid if we do not start looking into some of these hard issues, deeper issues in our educational system, we may grow a generation with great academic skills, but very little concern for their fellow human beings. It is especially difficult when some, forgive me, some intellectual pigmy masquerading as a Federal judge says that children in the public school system cannot say the words 'under God' in the Pledge of Allegiance. That essentially vitiates much of the efficiency of the system entirely.”