This morning

I was listening to NPR on the way home from work. Montana is attempting to cut state funding for schools. (Actually, much of the item was about another attempt by interest groups to use the judiciary to bypass the legislature). At the end of the bit, a phrase struck me.
"Education is a very important duty of the state".
Is it? Or is education a very important duty of the parents?
Go read Brave New Family: Men and Women, Children, Sex, Divorce, Marriage and the Family a collection of essays byGilbert Keith Chesterton
(edited by Alvaro De Silva), for a perspective from several decades ago about the long term reasons for and consequences of leaving education to bureaucrats.