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There's nothing I could write here that hasn't been said better before. Education is good for people. Education has been a driving force in the success of America. The more opportunities there are for education and the more ways to learn, the better.

Everybody is in favor of education. (Not necessarily paying for it, and not every way of doing it, so that's what we have to talk about.)

Before any of us were born, there were pretty much only two ways to learn new things: books and teachers. And despite the transformative impact of the written word, most of us need someone to show us how things work in order to be able to do them ourselves. That goes for any topic from calculus to poetry. The formula for thousands of years was this: Educator + educational texts = Education

Yet all of that changed with the invention of the computer. An interactive device can now be programmed to help people learn. It can illustrate concepts with interactive elements. The machine can assess our understanding and our misunderstanding—and adapt. And the machine can be used anywhere in the world and be instantly updated with new information. Education will change more in the next 50 years than it did in the previous 5,000 years. Your grandparents learned everything the same way that Aristotle taught Alexander. Your grandchildren will learn in ways we do not recognize.

School is not what it used to be. Many, if not most American K-12 schools are not palaces of education, but social service programs for children. Schools are where children are fed [1], where they receive healthcare, where they become socialized. Schools are where kids develop lifelong relationships. For many young people, teachers, coaches, and administrators are the most stable and trustworthy adults in their lives.

School also serves as safe daycare for families where the adults have to work, and after school programs and summer school programs provide further assistance.

School is a place you go, not a thing you do. Which, ironically, does not prepare people for the workforce of the 21st century, which is increasingly focused on results and outcomes from wherever-you-work more than it is going to a factory at your appointed shift.

School is essential, but not for the reasons we think. It's not a place to learn reading, writing, and arithmetic, but a place which is necessary to the survival of most children today.

[1] The free-and-reduced school lunch program is the single largest food welfare project in the country.