When the marxist Thomas Dewey (who designed the public school system) said: 'A thinking child is a threat, and spoils the harmony of the collective society that is coming.'
Dewey helped introduce innovations in education to get children beyond rote learning, where facts are memorized but not understood. He wanted learning to be active, where students build things or conduct scientific experiments. His experimental public school had laboratories in it. So pardon me for saying that I am skeptical that Dewey said such a thing, or that if he did, this quote isn't out of context.
I should say I'm not trying to defend Dewey. And I'm not a big fan of the public schools -- I teach math at the college level and I see first-hand the poor preparation and slack attitudes of high school students.