☆ Local libertarian weighs in on school privatization option
Brian Holtz — SCC Libertarian Party Campaigns Committee chair and Purissima Hills Water District director in Los Altos Hills — speaks with Opportunity Now about how a completely community-run K-12 education system might operate. School privatization may be strengthening across other states, but local legislators still face accusations of advancing “right wing power” via free market education systems. An Opp Now exclusive.
Opportunity Now: It’s no secret that our local schools are failing: failing to teach students the content and skills that they need, failing to keep ridiculous Woke ideologies out of the classroom, and failing to clue parents in on what their kids are learning and doing.
How would you fix these concerns locally, if provided the opportunity?
Brian Holtz: If I had a magic wand at the school district level, I would privatize all government schools.
Here’s the thing: People often complain about public schools but tend to like their children’s teachers. Thus, I’d turn each public school into an educational start-up company with more freedom than a charter school.
All company stock would be split in half: half to that school’s teachers and half to parents of kids who attend that school. Parents and teachers would then become the literal owners of their neighborhood school. They could decide salaries, tuition prices, who needs to be fired and hired, and other policies. They could call the shots on controversial stuff instead of receiving a mandate from the city, state, etc. level. Problems would be handled individually, locally.
The schools that do a better job of educating students would thrive under this model, and others would go out of business. In this way, government schools would, at last, be subject to free market competition.
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This article is part of an exclusive Opp Now series. Local Libertarian leaders share their perspectives on SCC governance:
Former Libertarian Party CA state chair and current Silicon Valley Taxpayers Association president Mark Hinkle discusses advantages of local drug liberalization.
SCC Libertarian Party Campaigns Committee chair Brian Holtz makes his case against land use restrictions.
Former Mountain View councilmember/mayor John Inks critiques local zoning/housing law.
John Inks analyzes local governments’ plans for construction and development projects.
Brian Holtz explains how a completely community-run K-12 education system might operate.