Posted on 12/29/2010 5:50:30 AM PST by IbJensen
As an advocate of full educational freedom, I am occasionally asked what America would be like if compulsory school attendance laws were done away with and the government got out of the education business.
My answer is that we'd probably become the best-educated nation in the world. Why? Because when parents are in charge of their own children’s education, they will seek the best they can get, and in this age of high technology and endless resources, the very best is available to anyone who wants to look for it.
Let's face it. The public schools use the most boring textbooks to teach bored kids what they really don't care to know. In fact, most public schools don't even teach kids to read properly. They use teaching methods that create reading disability. Now, if you were in charge of teaching your own children to read, would you use a teaching method that produced reading disability? Of course not. You'd seek out a program that produced learning success. Such programs do exist, despite the fact that many public schools refuse to use them.
My own reading program, Alpha-Phonics, was created to permit parents to teach their own children to read at home in the proper phonetic manner, thus avoiding the harm the government schools cause. Thousands of parents, as independent home educators, have taught their children to read with this program very successfully.
We tend to forget that the parents of the Founding Fathers were not compelled to send their children to King George's public schools, which happily didn’t exist. There was total educational freedom in the colonies, and that is why it was possible to get the finest education available — either at home or at an academy owned by an individual whose job it was to provide the best education possible.
Indeed, it was well understood what was meant by education. First, it required a grounding in the Bible, and learning the languages in which the Holy Scripture and theological literature was written: Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. It meant developing the intellectual faculties, the ability to read and to use language. It was understood that the mastery of language, which is the basic tool of thought, was the key to intellectual development.
In today's public schools, children's brains are stultified by the use of teaching methods resembling a non-surgical prefrontal lobotomy. Bright, intelligent children are deliberately made stupid by teaching methods calculated to do just that. We know that children are by nature intelligent because they start learning their own language practically from birth. By the time they are ready to attend school, they have mastered a vocabulary in the thousands of words. And they have done all of this by themselves, by listening and imitating the people around them, without the help of certified government teachers or schools.
All children, except the very seriously handicapped, are born with an innate language faculty. All children, therefore, are dynamos of language learning. The Bible tells us why. God gave us the power of speech: because He wanted to communicate with those He had created. In fact, the primary function of language was to permit man to know God. In other words, knowledge of God was the first step in Adam's education. The second function of language was to enable Adam to know the world. The Bible says in Genesis 2:19: “And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air, and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.”
In other words, God made Adam into an observer of the natural world around him, a scientist, and a lexicographer — an expander of language, and a maker of dictionaries. Then God gave Adam Eve. The Bible says in Genesis 1:28: "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."
So now language was to be used to know others and explore, discover, cultivate, conserve, and conquer. And finally, Adam was to use language to know himself, for language is the tool of thought, and we use language with our own inner dialogue in the solitude of our being.
Since we know what God made man into, the purpose of education should be to make a man into what God intended him to be: lexicographer, scientist, explorer, inventor, conqueror, farmer, conservationist, and also husband, father, head of his family, and educator to his children.
True educators, steeped in Biblical knowledge, have always known that the development of language and its uses was the initial purpose of education. In Deuteronomy we learn the religious and social functions of education: to know God, and to pass on to future generations that knowledge, that love, that admonition. Language is that means of cultural and religious transmission.
The Bible, passed from generation to generation, is a testament to the everlasting value of the written Word of God. An education system that denies this overwhelming truth cannot be accepted by a God-fearing people.
We read in the Gospel of John, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Thus, the Word is the key to everything of importance in our lives. But compulsory school attendance has destroyed that foundational knowledge and appreciation. You cannot even mention the Word of God in a government school. If we had educational freedom, the Word of God could once more become central to the lives of the American people.
There is no doubt that we would become the best educated people on earth, because we would know what education is and choose the best means to achieve it. We would acknowledge our dependence on God for ultimate wisdom. We would cultivate the minds of our children so that this God-given world of incredible beauty, variety, and mystery would be open to their curiosity and interest.
The public schools of today deprive children of their right to be what God made them to be. That is their sin. Charlotte Iserbyt, in her magnum opus, The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America, proves through exhaustive documentation that secular educators are using animal training techniques developed by behavioral scientists to turn American children into mindless robots who respond reflexively to stimuli imposed by godless educators. The children are being conditioned to respond through reinforcement as predicted by their trainers. As trained animals, they cannot take dominion over anything.
Education is not the same as training. Animals can be trained. They cannot be educated.
The present system of education reduces man to animal status so that he is denied the knowledge that he was made in God's image. When human beings, especially children, are trained like animals, they are being denied what is truly human about them: their ability to use their minds independently of any trainer. It is criminal to deprive children of their human qualities and capabilities. But that is what is being done in the name of School-to-Work, Outcome Based Education, and other such programs.
Our schools now teach children death education, suicide education, sex education, and drug education. Charlotte Iserbyt has observed that anything that is taught with the word "education" attached to it is not really education. You don't call reading, “reading education.” You don't call arithmetic, “arithmetic education.” You don't call spelling, “spelling education.” In other words, what they are really teaching is death, suicide, sex, and drugs. By adding the word education to these subjects, the educators fool parents into thinking that what the schools are doing is not subversive of their children's health and well-being, but something beneficial. But we know that it is not.
How much longer will Americans permit their children to be robbed of their most precious human values? Homeschoolers no longer permit it. Although they represent a small percentage of families in America, their numbers are growing. Little by little, the word is getting out. Thank God for that!
I like the sentiment, but don't see how it helps as long as our progressive tax structure is skewed as it is.
Welfare moms would find out the Big Education costs them nothing...maybe it would show them that they get more benefits the more they have illegitimate kids!
Taxpayers without kids would get reminded that they are getting hosed.
And rich people would probably reduce their private philanthropy when they realize how many kids they're already supporting.
The true cost is far more than just property, sales, and income taxes.
The true cost of collectivist government indoctrination ( schooling) is LOST JOBS that go permanently overseas, higher unemployment, under employment, less opportunity, fewer other essential government services, and deteriorating infrastructure.
Also....School taxes are money sucked out of the economy that could be used to create real wealth and health ( and gee! some fun, too!) and stimulate invention and growth.
A micro-economic example:
I ran a health clinic until I retired. I paid property taxes ( AKA: collectivist school taxes) on the building, but I also paid property taxes ( AKA: collectivist school taxes) on every piece of equipment that I purchased for the office, the very equipment that delivered the health care!
**ALL** of the property tax ( AKA: collectivist school tax) was passed on to the patient ( client or customer) in the form of higher prices. **All** the consumable supplies that were used also contained in their prices these hidden collectivist school taxes and these costs were passed on to the patient.
Well?...Is a “duh” needed here? Will a business locate in a country with higher costs or in one with a lower costs? Will U.S. goods, priced to include its high collectivist school taxes, be at an advantage or disadvantage in the world market? Answer: NO!
Please read post #42.
Collectivist school taxes cost **everyone** a BIG bundle!
The property, income, sales, and other business taxes ( AKA: collectivist school taxes) are rolled into ( and hidden in) the price of every good and service a person uses. This includes the welfare mom and the richest among us.
Even when buying something a simple as a roll of toilet paper, the citizen pays collectivist school taxes. In this one aspect, hidden collectivist school taxes are the flattest taxes going. The poorest really are getting hammered.
Adams and the other Founding Fathers likely had in mind the very education they enjoyed: homeschool, private tutors, small academies, and college in the early to mid teens.
Our Founding Fathers would be HORRIFIED to see how we spiritually, mentally, physically, and sexually **ABUSE** our children in these so-called collectivist "schools" that are nothing more than government prison camps.
That's how "progressives" do it - they keep hammering at "issue" until the sentiment changes, the difference being they have to make up and/or lie about the "issue" while here the issue / the problem / the "nail" is obvious - it just needs a hammer.
Welfare moms would find out the Big Education costs them nothing...
Welfare moms should find out and understand how much it really costs them - in increased prices from "third parties" passing the taxes and fees onto their bills and their children reduced to life in a welfare state because of poor education while the "government worker" (teacher or school administrator) gets a great retirement package and summer vacations.
Taxpayers without kids would get reminded that they are getting hosed.
That's exactly the idea - if they keep getting reminded, they might just decide to do something about it... If they don't get reminded, they'll keep voting for next increase of taxes "for schools," and the next one...
And rich people would probably reduce their private philanthropy when they realize how many kids they're already supporting.
They'll raise the prices for the services and products, passing the taxes on the middle class and welfare moms, to keep up with margin squeeze due to taxes and pay for their children's private schools... or they'll take their "marbles" and relocate them to less taxing, more hospitable state. But they are the smaller percentage of population, so they don't usually carry the brunt of education taxes as much as the other ones.
Gotta have a hammer and keep hammering the issue... they don't call them the "activists" for nothing, that's how they make money by convincing people that they get something "for free" or "from the rich". Show them how much it costs them, in money now and later and in the future (or lack of it) of their children.
Wendy, if there were no collectivist schools you would provide the education **you** wanted for **your** kids. If other parents “foisted” Greek and Latin on their kids, why would you care?
In time we would soon see if “foisting” Latin or Greek ( freely chosen by the parents) was worthwhile or not. We would the evidence in the SAT, ACT, GRE, LSAT, and MCAT scores and college grade point averages.
In a free economy, we would **know**, definitively, within 10 years what educational methods were effective and which were not.
The children of dedicated parents would receive a first class education, and would go on to adulthood to incredible success.
Millions of children of uncaring parents would no longer attend any type of school at all, and would stay home with Mom and the TV (babysitter)
Millions of children of mediocre parents would recieve a very mediocre and spotty education and would eventually enter the work-force at the earlier possible opportunity.
So, at the best case scenario, about 15% of the children would be well educated, maybe another 15% with a sub-standard education, but passable, 15% with the most possible base literacy (think ability to recognize name, environmental print) with the remainder 100% illiterate. Worked into the latter would be a small percentage of children who, altough illiterate, woudl still have marketable skills, so their literacy wouldn't be quite as damming.
First downside? At 18 all of the above are able to vote - think they are going to vote for less government and lower taxes? Nope, not a chance. Second downside? Over half of the population with no marketable skills, living on the government dime. In two generations, we'd see the result.
Bread and circuses...bread and circuses.
What is a “minority school”? Is it a school where minorities are the majority? Why would any educated parent join the PTA?
As for parents seeking the best they can get if there are/were no public schools, then I agree with you that there would be vast amounts of third worldism within years because there are a lot of parents who don’t care and haven’t a clue how to teach Johnny to read much less to do arithmetic.
I wish my father were alive today to tell me how he was educated. I know he attended public schools, but he was also very self-directed. He skipped several grades and worked every hour he could outside of school. You can’t do that nowadays. It goes against the prescribed path. (not exactly true because our oldest skipped high school altogether, took the GED, and went to university. but the education establishment frowned upon us.) I have found usefulness in a public high school that teaches technical education courses in conjunction with the local community college. My only problem with it is that the “can do” students are held back by those who can’t or won’t.
“Fund kids, not schools.”
The new Florida governor and legislature are going to give it a try.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2647193/posts
As far as myself..I'd have work before the day was out probably making pretty close to what make now. So I'd be fine, as would any future grandchildren, as I'd be part of their education. Of course, we would would have long ago moved, maybe to Australia,
Good! One successful model will smash the government school/teachers union one size (the dumbest size) fits all model.
I agree with you both. Yes we should expose the costs, even the hidden costs for welfare moms buying toilet paper!!!!
What I’m trying to expand on, though, ties in with the Stossell post about credit card fees/credit card protection act that costs us more.
In fact, it costs the lowest income people the most because they end up paying 500% interest rates on paycheck loans and at pawn shop loan sharks...
...AND THEY DON’T UNDERSTAND IT OR EVEN CARE.
Tell these people that toilet paper costs more because government education costs everyone eventually, and they’ll DEMAND that politicians subsidize toilet paper for them and raise taxes on the RICH!
I mean, look at home many supposedly conservative and fiscally rational freepers on the Stossell thread have their pitchforks out for the evil creditcard companies who simply responded rationally to irrational laws, and not the Dems who made things worse in the first place.
Again. I agree with your intent, to expose the costs of government education/anything. But what I think you’re overlooking is that it only works for people who are able to operate on the info. There’s a large amount of people in a bizarre world who DO NOT CARE how much things cost. They ONLY CARE that they are getting The View on the big screen TV.
Isn't that what we have now?
First downside? At 18 all of the above are able to vote - think they are going to vote for less government and lower taxes? Nope, not a chance. Second downside? Over half of the population with no marketable skills, living on the government dime. In two generations, we'd see the result. Bread and circuses...bread and circuses.
Isn't that what we have now?
By the way....I repeatedly asked "educators" for links to the research papers that show **exactly** where and how a child acquires his knowledge. No one has ever provided those links.
So?...Why do we automatically assume any learning happens in any institutional school? Perhaps the only things institutional schools do is send home a curriculum for the parents and child to follow in the **HOME**, and administer tests, and grade projects done in the **HOME**.
It is possible that, except for the rare exception, academically successful children are successful because they are homeschooled or afterschooled. The institutional school may actually retard their spiritual, social, emotional, and educational development.
Where are the studies? I would think that as "educators" one of the **first** things they would want to know is where and how a child acquires his knowledge and who or what is doing the actual teaching ( child?, parent?, textbook? library?).
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Given what happened in Utah, I don't have much hope for success in Florida.
A few years ago, Utah passes a universal voucher program. It was **immediately** attacked by the teachers unions nationwide. MILLIONS dollars poured into Utah and thousands of volunteers, to gather enough signatures to have a special referendum to defeat vouchers. In Utah to gather that many signatures is nearly impossible, but the NEA, the UEA, and their PTA toadies managed to do it.
Of course a special election usually has very low turn out. But...you can be certain that the NEA, the UEA, and PTA toadies managed to get their voters to the polls. Vouchers when down in FLAMES!
Another problem is that voters tend to be conservative. They are naturally, ( and wisely) suspicious of radical changes. So...The Utah legislature adopted a different strategy.
Immediately after the voucher fiasco, the Utah legislature did two things: they allowed the creation of charters ( a few at first) and a very small voucher program for children with disabilities. Of course, the “disabilities” included reading “disabilities”. ( wink! wink!) Soon there was a political constituency for expanding charters and increasing the number of vouchers. When one parent on the block sees another child going to a private school or a charter, the political pressure grows to expand these programs.
Gradually increasing tax credits, vouchers, and charters gradually builds the political lobby that will, in turn, increase these programs. The next step is to allow teachers themselves to vote to turn their schools into charter or voucher schools. This was done in one high school in Los Angeles. The teachers, themselves, voted to turn their high school into a Green Dot charter.
It is poor strategy, in my opinion, to go head to head with the NEA. It is much better to have long, long lines snaking around the block, with local newscasters broadcasting pitiful scenes of the many tears of parents and children, (whose shoulders are jerking with sobs), who have lost the lottery for entrance to a charter or for a precious voucher.
You’d be better off looking back at those days AS THEY REALLY WERE. Bells were rung because there were NO electrical systems to ring a modern bell system. There were NO electrically powered loudspeakers to tell the kids “time for school” or “recess is over”. I began school in an old building in 1939 that required a hand rung bell. We moved in 1944 and the ‘newer school’ had an automatic bell ringing system. Then in an even newer Junior High building there was a loudspeaker intercom system.
Those bells were telling the time to people who in the main had NO watches. And that education system “trained” the people who built the United States of America.
Yeah, that's the part of new Dodd-Frank bill and the new "Consumer Protection" czar (initially, Elizabeth Warren) that they "embedded" into the Fed with their own budget so this office will be essentially unaccountable to Congress... and this "protection" will cost everybody, especially hard hit will be poorer "little people" this bill is supposedly meant to "protect" from "evil, greedy" credit card companies and "banksters".
...AND THEY DON’T UNDERSTAND IT OR EVEN CARE.
The people who will be most affected by this probably applauded it, they are "getting even" now, they won't understand why things like credit got worse for them, not better. Politicians will promise another "fix". You can't explain it to them, work on those you can affect.
Dodd-Frank and this "consumer protection" agency (Democratic party is basically organized as mafia, in "group protection" racket) should be dismantled before they do even more damage to the economy, chasing capital and investment opportunities out of the U.S.
I mean, look at home many supposedly conservative and fiscally rational freepers on the Stossell thread have their pitchforks out for the evil creditcard companies who simply responded rationally to irrational laws, and not the Dems who made things worse in the first place.
I haven't seen the thread or even knew of its existence, but I definitely noticed this anti-bank, anti-business, anti-all-rich tendency on FR recently and it is seriously disturbing (I am trying to do a small part to stop the spread of this phenomenon of ideological "joining hands" with socialists). It's a negative feedback loop, but to be so indiscriminate just because Obama is where he is and the mood is sour? Indiscriminate negativity was exactly how GOP lost presidential election to Clinton in 1996 - they were lashing out at everybody, so who would want to be their friend? With friends like these who needs enemies?
But what I think you’re overlooking is that it only works for people who are able to operate on the info.
Actually, in terms of education and the government's and unions' very generous salary, benefits and pension packages (which are bankrupting the cities, and the failures and indifference of people in government education are now so obvious, that it's not a thankless task as it might have been long ago.
Many people (not all, but a substantial number) are no longer looking at government as "free" and the ground is fertile for them to realize more and more that there is a high cost (and with deficits, a future cost) to their inferior and often unneeded, cumbersome "services" and that the government has become a "vampire class" that is feeding on the "bloody class'" tears, sweat and blood.
Same envy and jealousy formerly directed only toward "the rich" will and often does now turn against generously-compensated "public service workers" who constantly look for ways to raise "revenues" that fall more and more on "not rich". Keep reminding people of that and you'll get the "lever" long enough to "move" at least some parts of the system. It just has to be done intelligently, for a long term, not slash-and-burn style...
We don't have to lose our minds just because we are mad.
You and others on this thread may be interested in the following material excerpted from a series entitled, "Lessons on Liberty," by La Vaughn G. Lewis, Co-Editor, of the books "Our Ageless Constitution" and "Rediscovering the Ideas of Liberty." The "Lesson" contrasts America's Founders' statements on the Ideas of Liberty" with the Counterfeit Ideas which "progressives" have promoted in the so-called "public schools" of America for decades. If you take the time to print out and place these statements side by side, you will see how they are diametrically opposed to each other, which accounts for several generations of Americans who do not understand the foundations of their rights and liberties.
“The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.” (Jefferson - 1774)
“Statesmen may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone which can establish the principles upon which Freedom can securely stand.” (John Adams - 1775)
“The Sacred Rights of Mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the Hand of the Divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.” (Alexander Hamilton)
“Without God, there could be no American form of government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first and the most basic expression of Americanism. Thus the founding fathers saw it, and thus, with God’s help, it will continue to be.” (Dwight Eisenhower)
“The same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe, the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.” (John F. Kennedy - 1961 Inaugural)
“…it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly implore His protection and favor….”(George Washington)
“Now the virtue which had been infused into the Constitution…and was to give it…the stability and duration to which it was destined, was no other than…those abstract principles…proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence—namely, the self-evident truths of the…unalienable rights of man…the…sovereignty of the people, always subordinate to a rule of right and wrong, and always responsible to the Supreme Ruler of the universe for the rightful exercise of that sovereign…power.” (John Quincy Adams, on the occasion of The Jubilee of the Constitution - 1839)
"Today, across our nation, we see consequences of decades of gross neglect and outright censorship of the Founders’ ideas from textbooks and from our public discourse. We have allowed counterfeit ideas to dominate the public square, and the Founders’ principles have been crowded out. Unwittingly, many teachers and other unknowing officials have participated in the agenda of an unelected mind-controlling elite whose tyrannical actions have robbed generations of Americans from reading or studying the ideas that made America free. Like termites, they have eroded our foundations as effectively as if they had burned the books. Yet, not once have they been willing to call it by its rightful name—censorship. Once, in America, stifling ideas about the Creator and Creator-endowed liberty was considered unthinkable. . . .
"The ideas of liberty must be passed on from generation to generation if liberty is to survive. These ideas, when they are allowed to be examined freely, will prevail, because their appeal is to reason and to the love for liberty that is deep in the human heart. John Adams warned: “The people of America now have the best opportunity and the greatest trust in their hands, that Providence ever committed to so small a number…if they betray their trust, their guilt will merit even greater punishment than other nations have suffered, and the indignation of Heaven.”
“The idea of God is the keystone of a perverted society. The true root of liberty, equality and culture is atheism.” (Karl Marx)
Our thinking is enlightened “in the degree in which we cease to depend upon belief in the supernatural.” (John Dewey, father of ‘progressive education’ and 1st President of American Humanist Society)
“…democracy is a human faith and movement, unencumbered by supernatural preconceptions.” (John Childs, a protégé of John Dewey at Columbia)
“…the majority of our youth still hold the values of their parents, and if we do not alter this pattern, if we do not resocialize ourselves to accept change, our society may decay.” (John Goodlad, 1971 Report to President, Schooling for the Future)
“As in 1933, humanists still believe that traditional theism, especially a faith in the prayer-hearing God, who is assumed to love and care for persons, to hear and understand their prayers, and be able to do something about them, is an unproved and outmoded faith.” (Humanist Manifesto II, 1973)
“…the most important factor moving us toward a secular society has been the educational factor. Our schools may not teach Johnny to read properly, but the fact that Johnny is in school until he is sixteen tends to lead toward elimination of religious superstition.” (Paul Blanshard, The Humanist, March-April, 1976)
“It [the Nat’l. Education Association’s publication list] includes the delegitimizing of all authority save that of the state, the degradation of traditional morality and the encouragement of citizens in general and children in particular to despise the rules and customs that make their society a functional democracy. The NEA is drifting into exceedingly dangerous waters, and probably carrying more than a few teachers and pupils with it.” (Chester E. Finn, Jr., Ass’t. Sec. Of Education & Prof. Of Education & Public Policy, Vanderbilt Univ., 1982)
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“Now, my countrymen, if you have been taught doctrines which conflict with the great landmarks of the Declaration of Independence…let me entreat you to come back. Return to the fountains whose waters spring close to the blood of the Revolution.” (Abraham Lincoln)
I disagree with that prediction. I think that, if the other choice were having their own children at home with them all the time, many parents would make the decision to send them to school, either paying for it themselves (as they do for private daycare now) or applying for charity.
The charity might well come with provisions that the parents improve themselves, or at least support their children's education, with positive results for two generations.
If for some reasons all schools disappeared in a blink, I would hope you would be right and I would be wrong.
But I have no faith in a huge portion of our society to do the right thing, it’s nice that you do though. I’m just a cynic I guess.
If a school-sucking alien mothership appears, we'll have plenty of other things to worry about. (Well, I won't, because Pat is the system lord, but the rest of you will.) Aside from that eventuality, the situation won't occur, so making predictions as to the outcome is pointless. In addition, I was positing the existence of privately funded schools, for those who wished to patronize them.
I think people are basically rational - even uneducated and/or not-very-smart people. If their incentives change, their behavior will change. If nobody supports adults sitting at home watching tv, they'll find something else to do or starve. If there's no "free" child care, they'll find some other way to avoid spending time with their children at home.
My observation is that avoiding time with their children is a very strong drive for many. The wailings of mothers on snow days or "teacher workdays" are simply deafening.
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