An empty hallway at Garfield Elementary in Columbus, Ohio, one of thousands of public schools Mr. Karlsson argues should be converted to privately operated, publicly funded universal education centers. Credit: Brian Nagle/The Columbus Dispatch
An empty hallway at Garfield Elementary in Columbus, Ohio, one of thousands of public schools Mr. Karlsson argues should be converted to privately operated, publicly funded universal education centers. Credit: Brian Nagle/The Columbus Dispatch

Let me be clear about something. Public schools in this country are failing. And nobody wants to talk about it.

Actually, that’s not true. Everybody wants to talk about it. But nobody wants to say what I’m about to say, which is the only thing worth saying. So I’ll say it.

The American public school system is a government monopoly. Think about that. A monopoly. Run by the government. You wouldn’t let the government make your car. You wouldn’t let the government cut your hair. But you’re supposed to let the government — the same government that can’t fill a pothole in under nine months — educate your children? Your children?

It’s insane. And the solution is obvious. Privatize the schools. All of them. Let parents choose where to send their kids and pay for it themselves. That’s the free market. That’s how this country is supposed to work.

Now. I already know what the establishment is going to say. They’re going to say: Tucker, families can’t afford private school tuition. And you know what? They’re right. They can’t. You know why they can’t?

Because wages in this country are a joke.

A family in 1955 — one income, one job, dad works at the plant — could own a house, feed four kids, and take a vacation to the lake. Every summer. The lake. Today? Today both parents work sixty hours a week and they still can’t afford eggs. Think about that. Eggs. The most basic food in the history of civilization, and the American middle class is being priced out of it by the same multinational corporations that have shipped every decent job to a country with no labor protections.

So here’s the problem. You privatize schools. Parents can’t pay. Why can’t they pay? Because corporate elites have systematically crushed their wages for forty years. And nobody wants to talk about it.

What do you do? You have two options. Option one: let rich kids get educated and poor kids get nothing. That’s what the elites want. That’s the system they’ve designed. Option two — and this is just common sense, this is what real Americans have always believed — the government steps in and pays for it. Not to run the schools. Government-run schools are the problem. But to fund them. Fully. Every child. Every family. You pay your taxes, your kid gets an education.

Every kid. No exceptions.

Now, I’m no socialist, but think about what that means. Every parent gets a voucher. The voucher covers one hundred percent of tuition. Every school has to accept it. No school can charge above it. The voucher amount is set by a federal board to ensure adequate resources. You know what that is? That’s universal education, free at the point of service, funded entirely by tax revenue.

Some people will say: Tucker, that’s a public school. No. It isn’t. The building says “Riverside Academy” instead of “Riverside Elementary.” The principal is called a “director.” Completely different system. The fact that the funding mechanism, the enrollment policy, and the educational outcome are identical is irrelevant.

Look. The elites want you trapped. They want you choosing between a broken public system and a private system only they can afford. That’s not a choice. That’s a cage.

The real answer — the answer nobody in Washington will say — is a network of independently managed, universally accessible, fully taxpayer-funded education centers in every neighborhood in America. Staffed by qualified professionals. Paid a living wage. Benefits. Retirement. Protected from arbitrary termination by some kind of — and I want to be precise here — collective bargaining structure.

Is that a union? No. It’s a bargaining collective. Completely different.

I’m no socialist, but these educators — who would be publicly funded and protected by federal employment standards — should have the right to negotiate as a group. That’s not radical. That’s what a coal miner had in 1935. Ask yourself why a teacher in 2026 has less bargaining power than a coal miner in 1935 and then tell me the free market is working.

And who oversees this system? Not the private market. We’ve seen what private equity does. It buys something, loads it with debt, strips it for parts, and walks away. That’s what they did to Toys “R” Us. That’s what they did to local newspapers. You want them doing that to your kid’s school? You want Blackstone running third grade?

Not individual states, either. You let states handle it, rich districts get everything and poor districts get a building with no heat. You already know this. You’ve seen it.

The only entity with the scale to guarantee equal education for every American child is the federal government. One national funding formula. Universal standards. Free meals — because a hungry child cannot learn, and no parent should have to choose between lunch and long division. Free transportation. Free textbooks. Free after-school programs so that working parents — real working parents, not the consultants and hedge-fund managers who have hollowed out this economy — don’t have to choose between a paycheck and their child’s future.

This is not big government. This is the government doing the one thing it should actually do.

Some of my critics will read this column and say I have just described the public school system. To them I say: you are not listening. What I have described is a privatized system that happens to be publicly funded, publicly mandated, publicly regulated, universally accessible, and free. The distinction is critical, and if you can’t see it, that’s your problem.