Reply #5: It is the religious right, not business, that battles public education. [View All]

[eallen]

Corporations typically see the value in a good public education system. When Toyota chose Canada over Alabama as the site for a new plant a couple of years back, the difference in public education standards was one of the reasons it explicitly called out. That's not an exception. If you research the issue, you will find that is one of the things that companies standardly examine when they are choosing a new site. It makes a difference to them in the kind of workers they can hire, and the amount of training those workers require. If you put it to a vote of corporate CEOs, I suspect you would find increased budgets for public schools.

In contrast, the religious right detests public schools because they won't indoctrinate students in their chosen religious beliefs. This is a problem for two reasons. (a) Even though the public schools also don't oppose religion, the very lack of indoctrination opens students minds to possibilities outside their parents' world view. (b) Achieving the level of indoctrination that the parents desire now requires that they either individually fund private schools, or that they go to the considerable effort of home schooling. The religious right correctly views public schools as a practical impediment to religious indoctrination, and so there goal is to get the government to fund the latter through voucher programs for religious schools.