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Stossel can send the check

Tuesday, May 29 at 12:01 AM

This Speakout has not been edited

By Michael P. Mazenko, Greenwood Village

While criticizing the inadequacy of public education, John Stossel recently said he'd "give Rocky Mountain News readers $100 if they can tell [him] one thing the government does better than the private sector."

In all fairness, I enjoy Stossel, but where should I start?

The most obvious answer is national defense. No private sector militia could more effectively defend the United States. Would the private sector have been able to assemble the forces currently fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq? To quote Bill O'Reilly, "that's ridiculous." Not even Grover Norquist, who wants to "shrink government until it's small enough to drown in the bathtub," would eliminate the nation's military.

Having enjoyed numerous episodes of Stossel's "Myths, Lies, and Stupidity," I understand and agree with his core philosophy. The government is too big, too corrupt, and too expensive. Being fiscally conservative, I regularly lament Alaskan "bridges to nowhere" and other examples of bureaucratic disasters. However, the government is best at providing not-for-profit services such as fire protection. I support volunteer fire departments, but no private organization could replace tax-supported firefighters.

Additionally, Stossel cannot rationally argue that private security forces - the likes of which patrol malls and gated communities - could adequately replace police departments. Interstate highway construction, nuclear energy regulation, NASA, The Clean Water Act, the Center for Disease Control, and the National Institute of Health are other examples of effective government.

As America's original libertarian Henry David Thoreau said, "I ask not at once for no government, but for a better government."

Sadly, Mr. Stossel did a poor job of paraphrasing a statement Rush Limbaugh made twenty years ago in his book "The Way Things Ought to Be." Limbaugh was astute enough to say "excepting the military, name one government program that has worked and alleviated the problem it was created to solve." Stossel should at least give credit when he borrows his material. Stossel's comment was made in criticism of American public education. It's easy to blame ineffective government for that. Anyone who has seen Stossel's special "Stupid in America" knows he provides ample evidence of absurd inadequacies in schools nationwide. His examination of the New York City public school's union contract is enough to make me lose faith in the system, and I'm a teacher. The problem is Stossel's generalizations. No one can reasonably argue that "public education does not work." Consider Cherry Creek High School. By all accounts - including comments from real estate agents who say parents regularly limit their housing searches to the surrounding neighborhoods - Cherry Creek is an extremely successful public school. Additionally, I have friends and family who attended New Trier High School and Stevenson High School in the Chicago suburbs. Anyone from Chicago knows there's nothing wrong with "public education" in those neighborhoods. I've had students transfer to schools like Scanton College Prep in Jacksonville, Florida. Readers of Newsweek's Best High Schools list will recognize that one. All of these schools, as well as thousands of others, are phenomenal public schools. These schools are not failures of a government program. Nor do they support the belief that teacher's unions and tenure are the reasons that public schools fail. Obviously, the success or failure of a school isn't simply linked to public funding. Sadly, the issue is far more complex than that. Thus, Stossel does his profession a disservice by oversimplifying such an important issue in American society. He is guilty of such obvious flawed logic that my AP Language students would enjoy deconstructing his argument. I am all for social criticism. Teaching novels of social criticism is a fundamental component of my job. However, I am also a teacher of critical thinking. In that respect, Stossel fails as badly as many of the programs he criticizes.

Mr. Stossel, you can make the check out to Michael P. Mazenko, and you can send it care of Cherry Creek High School.

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