So a reader sent me a long email somewhat critical of “libertarian means for non-libertarian ends.” I’ll share most of it later. I will admit it’s lame branding at about the pay grade of “keep Locke in the Locke box.”

But he did say there is some truth to the idea. The correct libertarian impulse for those defending real diversity in education is to resist the heck out of the Common Core:

Then there is your last remark about fighting against bureaucratic standardization in education. I’ve got to say that the full force of Common Core only really hit me this past week. It turns out that Common Core really isn’t at all “common.” In Math, for example, it cleaves to a very particular pedagogic approach, with very particular sorts of operations. The problem, however, is that the SATs are being re-normed to correspond with Common Core. This seems to me to be a sort of centralizing end-run around school choice: none except the most marginal parent will henceforth seek out curricular alternatives, since to do so would hobble their children’s chances at getting into a good college. So, henceforth, you’re welcome to your charter schools and private schools — but they’ll end up teaching the same thing as the public schools anyway. It’s really quite insidious.

Now the right we’re talking about here is the right of parents to decide how best to educate their children. This isn’t an individual right. It depends on the relational legal category of parent. The great individualist Hobbes was, I will admit, very strong on this right. Children exist primarily in relation to their parents or not as citizens subject to public education. That’s not to say I’m against public education as one possibility among many.American educational diversity has depended on the state and its bureaucrats, regulations, certifications, grants, and loans having only a very minimalist effect on the content of various forms of private and often religious education. That’s as true for college as it is for kindergarten.

I haven’t studied the Common Core with the attention it deserves. But one outrage I’ve noticed is the abolition of the teaching of penmanship or cursive writing. It’s right from printing in first grade to the computer. Studies actually show that students who take handwritten notes in class learn a lot more than students who play court reporter with their laptops. My own view is that we ought to ban laptops and other smart devices from most classrooms. But I don’t insist on a national mandate forced upon the country by Bill Gates to achieve my goal.