Bullying is getting a lot of attention in the news. I hear the talking heads talking about the pros and cons of various approaches. What laws should be enacted to counter bullying and what actions should be taken.

That approach to bullying reminded me of my youth. Schools seemed much less complicated then. They didn’t have as many regulations, requirements, diversity training, sensitivity training, politically correct training, etc, that the have today.

I remember that if you were picked on, you could defend yourself, or a teacher would step in (if they over heard or became aware of it). The teacher would let the perpetrator know their bullying language or behavior would have consequences. Parents would be called if things got out of hand or crossed a line. Or parents requests to administrators were dealt with effectively. This was my experience in private school, where my parents paid their ‘taxes’ directly to the school in the way of tuition.

My experience in junior high (a public school) was much different. It wasn’t much different then what I read about today. In the public debate, every talking head and interest group have a strong opinion on bullying. I look at it from a different point of view. First, this is what happens when you centralize decision making. We have to send our kids to specific public schools, where they are basically trapped to attend unless we want to home school or pay for private school – on top of paying taxes for public schools whether our kids attend or not.

Since schools are more centralized, that means Washington is getting directly involved in deciding how the local school should handle the bullying situation. Having a bureaucratic organization deciding such things from 2,000 miles away doesn’t make much sense to me.

Imagine if schools were private organizations, competing for our hard-earned money. How do you think bullying would be handled? Do you think there would be as many attempts to ignore the concerns of the parents – the payers of the administrators salary? Of course not, because they could take their money elsewhere.

You see, part of the problem with dealing with bullies, is that Washington is modeling bullying behavior. They direct much of what a school can and should do. And they have the power of the purse.

Bullying in a private institution is handled much better because the school has a vested interest in keeping the student and their parents happy – they are paying customers. When you remove the parents from the process, you remove a crucial dynamic in dealing with bullies.

I recognize bullying can be a serious issue. It can have serious consequences. As a parent, I like the leverage I have when I’m a paying customer when a provider (a school) is worried I might leaver and take my ‘taxes’ with me. By bringing the power of the purse back to the local communities (school choice – and tax choice) we force schools and parents to be more engaged.

I’ve learned that people tend to model what you do regardless of what you say. So, ask the government to stop bullying schools on how to handle these situations and give power back to the parents.