Rand Paul "Gushes" at the Idea of Government Financed Private Schools

The Tennessean reports:

[Lamar] Alexander and [Rand] Paul gushed about publicly financed, privately led charters for more than an hour as they heard Nashville charter leaders discuss their longer school days and freedom to set curriculum. Parents and former students chimed in with personal stories on how school choice changed their lives.[...]

“As I listen to the conversation, you don’t really hear any downsides about the charter schools,” said Paul.[...] “It seems to all be good."

“I’m going to try to take this back to Kentucky and see if we can get charter schools in Kentucky."

Note well, this isn't the position advanced by libertarians such as Murray Rothbard. This is still government involvement in the education sector.

Rand's position here is terrible. It promotes the idea that government education wrapped in "charter  school" talk is significantly different than plain old public school education. They both should be called what they are: government influenced education via government money.

And further, the Rand/Alexander discussion remains in the realm of compulsory education.

As Rothbard put it: in Education: Free and Compulsory:

The record of the development of compulsory education is a record of State usurpation of parental control over children on behalf of its own; an imposition of uniformity and equality to repress individual growth; and the development of techniques to hinder the growth of reasoning power and independent thought among the children.