[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 8]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 10000]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      FAMILY EDUCATION FREEDOM ACT

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                             HON. RON PAUL

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 2, 2009

  Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, I rise today to introduce the Family 
Education Freedom Act, a bill to empower millions of working and 
middle-class Americans to choose a non-public education for their 
children, as well as making it easier for parents to actively 
participate in improving public schools. The Family Education Freedom 
Act accomplishes it goals by allowing American parents a tax credit of 
up to $5,000 for the expenses incurred in sending their child to 
private, public, parochial, other religious school, or for home 
schooling their children.
  The Family Education Freedom Act returns the fundamental principal of 
a truly free economy to America's education system: what the great 
economist Ludwig von Mises called ``consumer sovereignty''. Consumer 
sovereignty simply means consumers decide who succeeds or fails in the 
market. Businesses that best satisfy consumer demand will be the most 
successful. Consumer sovereignty is the means by which the free market 
maximizes human happiness.
  Currently, consumers are less than sovereign in the education 
``market.'' Funding decisions are increasingly controlled by the 
federal government. Because ``he who pays the piper calls the tune,'' 
public, and even private schools, are paying greater attention to the 
dictates of federal ``educrats'' while ignoring the wishes of the 
parents to an ever-greater degree. As such, the lack of consumer 
sovereignty in education is destroying parental control of education 
and replacing it with state control. Loss of control is a key reason 
why so many of America's parents express dissatisfaction with the 
educational system.
  According to a survey conducted by Education Next/Harvard PEPG, the 
majority of Americans support education tax credits. This poll also 
found strong support for education tax credits among liberals, 
moderates, conservatives, low-income individuals, African-Americans, 
and public-school employees. This is just one of numerous studies and 
public opinion polls showing that Americans want Congress to get the 
federal bureaucracy out of the schoolroom and give parents more control 
over their children's education.
  Today, Congress can fulfill the wishes of the American people for 
greater control over their children's education by simply allowing 
parents to keep more of their hard-earned money to spend on education 
rather than force them to send it to Washington to support education 
programs reflective only of the values and priorities of Congress and 
the federal bureaucracy.
  The $5,000 tax credit will make a better education affordable for 
millions of parents. Madame Speaker, many parents who would choose to 
send their children to private, religious, or parochial schools are 
unable to afford the tuition, in large part because of the enormous tax 
burden imposed on the American family by Washington.
  The Family Education Freedom Act also benefits parents who choose to 
send their children to public schools. Parents of children in public 
schools may use this credit to help improve their local schools by 
helping finance the purchase of educational tools such as computers or 
to ensure their local schools can offer enriching extracurricular 
activities such as music programs. Parents of public school students 
may also wish to use the credit to pay for special services, such as 
tutoring, for their children.
  Increasing parental control of education is superior to funneling 
more federal tax dollars, followed by greater federal control, into the 
schools. A recent review of the relevant research conducted by Andrew 
J. Coulson of the CATO Institute shows that increasing parental 
controls increases academic achievement, efficiency, the orderliness of 
the classrooms, and the quality of school facilities. Not surprisingly, 
graduates of education system controlled by parents tend to achieve 
higher levels of education and earn more than their counterparts in 
bureaucratically controlled education systems.
  Clearly, enactment of the Family Education Freedom Act is the best 
thing this Congress could do to improve public education. Furthermore, 
a greater reliance on parental expenditures rather than government tax 
dollars will help make the public schools into true community schools 
that reflect the wishes of parents and the interests of the students.
  The Family Education Freedom Act will also aid those parents who 
choose to educate their children at home. Home schooling has become an 
increasingly popular, and successful, method of educating children. 
Home schooled children out-perform their public school peers by 30 to 
37 percentile points across all subjects on nationally standardized 
achievement exams. Home schooling parents spend thousands of dollars 
annually, in addition to the wages forgone by the spouse who forgoes 
outside employment, in order to educate their children in the loving 
environment of the home.
  Ultimately, Madam Speaker, this bill is about freedom. Parental 
control of child rearing, especially education, is one of the bulwarks 
of liberty. No Nation can remain free when the State has greater 
influence over the knowledge and values transmitted to children than 
the family.
  By moving to restore the primacy of parents to education, the Family 
Education Freedom Act will not only improve America's education, it 
will restore a parent's right to choose how best to educate one's own 
child, a fundamental freedom that has been eroded by the increase in 
federal education expenditures and the corresponding decrease in the 
ability of parents to provide for their children's education out of 
their own pockets. I call on all my colleagues to join me in allowing 
parents to devote more of their resources to their children's education 
and less to feed the wasteful Washington bureaucracy by supporting the 
Family Education Freedom Act.

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