Why don’t our schools reopen? Is it because of the Coronavirus (COVID-19)? No. Look around. Have you seen your neighbors dropping like flies?

The answer is that we have given up too much of our ability to run our own lives. We have given our elected officials and government bureaucrats more responsibility for our security than we have any business giving them.

Do our elected officials actually care all that much about us or our children, or do they just mouth soothing words? Do they just make promises no one can keep?

Like it or not we are literally strangers to the people who rule over us. Therefore, our elected officials often worry most about getting reelected. Our elected officials buy our votes. Our elected officials reward their donors. Our elected officials maneuver to position themselves ambiguously so that they seem to be on both sides of every issue. Our elected officials view every issue with respect to whatever political advantage it might give them.

Nothing is science to an unscrupulous politician. Everything is politics.

Our elected officials also avoid risk like the plague. Why? Human being care about themselves first, and they know we will jump all over them if they make a mistake. They are not stupid, but they may think we are.

What about government bureaucrats? The Center for Disease Control (CDC) is run by risk adverse bureaucrats. If someone gets sick because of their recommendations they know they will get into trouble. Their political bosses will happily put the blame on them, and their heads will roll, not the heads of the politicians. The public schools are run by bureaucrats. If someone gets killed because of a decision they make to reopen the schools, they will get into trouble. Whereas, if they keep the schools closed, they get paid anyway.

Lets reiterate. Human being care about themselves first, and they know we will jump all over them if they make a mistake.

What if we sent our children to private schools? If the private school you were sending your children to did not reopen, would you pay them? Of course not. Therefore, private schools don’t close unless they have to do so. When private organizations don’t get the job done, private organizations have to deal with the consequences. Government organizations just ask for more money from the taxpayers.

Whenever we get something from our government for “free”, it is not free. When we sent our children to “free” public schools, we gave up essential liberties.

• We gave up the choice of who teaches our children, who becomes their role models.
• We gave up the choice of what our children are taught. Instead of their parent’s values, special interest groups decide whose values our children will learn.
• We gave up the choice of when our children are taught. If politicians and bureaucrats want to teach your kids in the middle of the night, how you stop them?
• We gave up the choice of where our taught. Is it online, in the classroom, in a forest, at the library listening to a transgender ideologist tell strange tales, …..
• We gave up the choice of how our children are taught. If education theorists want to try out their latest theory on your child, like the latest version of new math, how do you stop them?

How did we get into this mess? Well, we are not the first to give up an essential liberty. That is why Benjamin Franklin made this observation.

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. — Benjamin Franklin (from here (en.wikiquote.org))

If we want control over our lives, we must take responsibility for our lives, and we must bear the consequences if we make the wrong choice. We cannot give up our liberty for safety, freebies, or any other empty promises.

Tomorrow the Prince William County School Board will consider four different options for the coming school year, Preparing For The 2020-21 School Year (pwcs.edu). Here is the agenda => School Board Agendas.

Read Preparing For The 2020-21 School Year. Choose the option you want. Then let your school member know what you want (contact info here (pwcs.edu)). If parents in overwhelming numbers don’t let school board they want their schools reopened, it won’t happen any time soon.