Former Gov. Jeb Bush sat down with the Wall Street Journal for a lil chitchat, and after getting it out of the way that he would never, ever want to be honored on President's Day, he starts getting hyper-excited about the Swedish education system.
"The idea that somehow Sweden would be the land of innovation, whereYes, clearly we need a better education system than the current one, especially when former governors are using made-up words such as "voucherized," but is Sweden really the way to go?private involvement in what was considered a government activity, is
quite shocking to us Americans," Mr. Bush says. "But they're way ahead
of us. They have a totally voucherized system."
The country's population is more than 88 percent indigenous, only 23 percent believe in
God (a majority believes in a "spirit force"), and even there some
complain the education system's reliance on for-profit schools has
led to an increase in fundamentalist religious schools and
segregation. Wonder what would happen in the States, where there's more diversity and
the number of religious fundamentalists is higher?
There are some good points to the Swedish education system, such as the fact that
after the age of 16, students can choose either vocational school or a college-prep type of institution, but Jeb has clearly locked on to this system
because of vouchers, vouchers, vouchers!
Sweden also funds
preschool and college, but since Jeb is remembered for not wanting
to raise taxes to support education, one wonders how he'd fund this
plan.
