COLUMBUS, Ohio — America’s public education system is “socialism” and should be privatized, the vice chairman of the Ohio House Education Committee wrote in a recent online column.

"We need to do something that was done about 25 years ago in the former Soviet Union and eastern bloc: sell off the existing buildings, equipment and real estate to those in the private sector," wrote state Rep. Andrew Brenner, a Republican from Powell, on Brenner Brief News, a website operated by his wife.

Brenner, himself a graduate of the Delaware, Ohio, public school system, said government control over education has led to many of the concerns raised with schools today, including standardized testing, Common Core standards, and powerful teachers' unions.

Handing control over to the free market, he said, would eliminate the need for such standards and testing, as schools that fail to provide a good education will go out of business.

Tax dollars, he continued, should follow students to whichever school they choose, similar to how the federal government awards financial aid to college students.

“Privatize everything and the results will speak for themselves,” he wrote.

The legislator yielded that “it will not be an easy transition” and “it will take open-minded people who want successful students, not those who want to fight turf wars and a hanging on of a failed system.”

Brenner didn't return multiple phone calls to his office seeking comment. In a statement released Tuesday, he apologized to those offended by his remarks but implied that critics misunderstood his argument.

“While my intentions were not to disparage anyone, I understand how those remarks could be taken that way,” Brenner said in the statement.

“I support quality educational opportunities for everyone, including within the public education system,” he continued, “and I will continue to promote and support policies I think best represent the people of Delaware County and that provide the best possible educational outcomes for Ohio’s young people.”

In a subsequent post on Monday, Brenner said he only suggested that America should move toward a more privatized system and that "it will be almost impossible to privatize the system."

Brenner wrote that he has received a "firestorm" of criticism about his column from left-wing media and social-media commenters.

"I’m guessing those people had a public education — common core may have even been involved," Brenner stated in his follow-up column.

That brought a rebuke from House Speaker Bill Batchelder, a Medina Republican, who told the Columbus Dispatch that he "will not stand by the comments" in Brenner's second column.

Sara Marie Brenner also disputed allegations that Brenner Brief News is an unregistered company, saying on her online radio show that the site is part of an limited-liability company she filed in 2009 under her maiden name called "The Right Idea."