VT Christian Homeschooling Mom Taken Away In Shackles!

Source: The Curmudgeon: A Vermont Newsletter (reprint permission is hereby granted by the publisher to any and all other news agencies and their readers or viewers)

On Wednesday, October 16, Patricia L. O'Dell, 34, of S. Newfane, was arrested at 3:05 pm at the Bennington District Court in Bennington, Vermont for contempt of court. Mrs. O'Dell had been cited into court yesterday morning for refusing to submit to fingerprinting and a photograph for police files.

Mrs. O'Dell was ordered to submit to this procedure on October 7 at another arraignment hearing for 'custodial interference' and 'impeding an officer' as part of her release conditions. That condition involved Mrs. O'Dell going to the Bennington police station within 5 days of her release. On the following Friday, October 11, four days later, Mrs. O'Dell contacted U.S. Attorney Brian Marthage in Bennington through an advocate to inform him she wished to turn herself in because she was still refusing to have the prints and photos taken. Marthage informed the advocate that the courts are closed over the weekend and according to his calculations the fifth day would be Monday, October 14. Mrs. O'Dell waited the weekend and all day Monday until 5 pm. On the morning of October 15 she arrived at the police station to turn herself in and still refused to submit to the fingerprinting and photograph. She was promptly given a citation to appear in District Court the following morning at 11:30 am.

Mrs. O'Dell arrived at District Court at 11:30 am and was told her case had been moved to 12:30 pm. Mrs. O'Dell was finally called into the court room at approximately 2:30 pm where she represented herself and entered a plea of 'not guilty' to the charge. When questioned by Judge Howard about her refusal to submit to being photographed and fingerprinted Mrs. O'Dell informed him she believes a person is innocent until proven guilty and the procedure violates her rights. After hearing testimony from the prosecutor who expressed his concern for Mrs. O'Dell's ongoing contempt and that she basically "holds the keys to her own jail cell", Judge David Howard ordered a 'show cause' hearing be scheduled for the following week. Mrs. O'Dell was then released and presented with the conditions which she was expected to sign. Upon reading the conditions Mrs. O'Dell found difficulty in agreeing with the requirement that she abide by Family Court orders. One such order is that she turn over her 15 year old homeschooling son to state custody. Mrs. O'Dell refuses to do that because she feels strongly that it would compromise her religious beliefs and her son's Christian education. She also fears he would be subjected to abuse in the hands of SRS (Social Rehabilitative Services).

Upon Mrs. O'Dell's final refusal and a warning from the deputy sheriff that she would be taken into custody if she did not sign, she was quickly escorted from the court lobby to a small holding room where she was searched and relieved of her wrist watch and wedding band. She was place in hand cuffs attached to a leather belt around her waist and her ankles were secured with cuffs and a length of metal chain. These were placed on her to prepare her for transport by the Bennington County Sheriff's department to the Chittenden Regional Corrections Facility at 7 Farrell Street in South Burlington, Vermont.

It was brought to the attention of the attending sheriffs that they needed to take special care with Mrs. O'Dell's right wrist and hand which were wrapped in a support bandage. Mrs. O'Dell says this injury was a result of state trooper Jesse Robson's actions on Friday, September 13 when he tackled Mrs. O'Dell to the ground at the home of Mrs. Pat Stewart on Rocky Lane. Mrs. Stewart is Mrs. O'Dell's mother. Robson allegedly then placed his knee in Mrs. O'Dell's back and cuffed her hands behind her back. Officer Robson then tightened his grip on her arm while twisting it in an attempt to prevent her from shouting to her family members to not let the other officers into her mother's home without a search warrant, according to Mrs. O'Dell. Robson was there that day with several other officers to take Mrs. O'Dell's four children into state custody for what he describes in his affidavit as "The basis for the children being taken into custody was educational neglect."

Mrs. O'Dell also accused Officer Robson of pulling her by the hair and squeezing her face with his hand at the time of this incident. When Mrs. O'Dell was taken into custody she claims she was never read her Miranda rights although Robson questioned her extensively and alone in the cruiser and at the Shaftsbury barracks. She says she also suspects the reason why she was not photographed when she was first arrested was because Robson left marks on her face and those marks would have shown up in the photograph. Robson was unable to take Mrs. O'Dell's fingerprints because she was suffering pain from Robson's alleged abuse that caused injury to her right hand and wrist.

Mrs. O'Dell sought medical treatment at the Southwestern Vermont Medical Center at around 12:20 am once SRS took possession of her three daughter and she was released from custody. Her arm was wrapped and placed in a sling by attending physician Dr. G. Pellerin. According to the medical report Mrs. O'Dell had a hand injury, sprained wrist and contusions. On Saturday, October 14 a highly visible thumb size contusion could be seen on Mrs. O'Dell's upper inside left arm where she alleges Robson grabbed her. The marks on her face were no longer noticeable.

Besides the alleged abuse by Officer Robson there is a huge discrepancy in the times of the arrival of the police officers and the time the search warrant was signed. According to Officer Robson and Sergeant Lloyd N. Dean, another state police officer at the scene, they arrived at approximately 4:15 or 4:39 pm. The search warrant was not signed by Judge Howard until 6:35 pm. This would show the officers entered onto the Stewart property without the proper warrant. According to Mrs. O'Dell's family members the officers were told more than once they needed a search warrant to enter the property. It was decided by Dean that he would leave to obtain the search warrant. Family members also say the back door to the kitchen was kicked in by two officers just prior to anyone actually being handed the search warrant. The search warrant specifically says "This warrant may (not) be executed without knocking and announcing the presence of law enforcement officers and their purpose." Neither the word 'may' or 'not' were either circled, underlined or crossed out. The requirement for the serving officer to knock and announce is a federal law.

Prior to Dean obtaining the search warrant O'Dell's youngest daughter, Elizabeth, age 8, was chased screaming through the wooded lot near the Stewart home for some distance before she "just disappeared", as her mother stated. This was of great concern to both Mr. and Mrs. O'Dell because just that morning Mr. O'Dell had been squirrel hunting in that same wooded area and he warned his wife to not let the children play in them for fear of them getting shot by hunters he saw there. Mrs. O'Dell says she was terrified for her daughter's safety because the five police officers who were chasing her were showing little, if any, regard for the hunting taking place in those woods.

The O'Dell family has been living in their car, in motels and have camped out in warmer weather since they lost their West Haven, Vermont home to a fire in December 2000 just three days after Christmas. The family is not entirely homeless though. With the insurance money from their destroyed home they purchased a one acre lot located on Hunter Brook Road in South Newfane in the fall of 2001. They also purchased a second hand mobile home from a woman in Shaftsbury to place onto their new lot. This mobile home was well kept and within the O'Dell's budget. The previous owner was happy to have the mobile home taken off her hands because she needed it removed in order to replace it with her new one.

Patricia found a company in New Hampshire willing to transport the mobile home to S. Newfane for a fee of $950.00 but the company had difficulty getting the home onto the lot. The mobile home continues to sit at the end of the O'Dell's driveway where it was left in the late fall of 2001. Plans are underway to connect the mobile home with the property by a group of concerned citizens who have taken the initiative to get the project done at no cost to the O'Dell family. The goal is to get the mobile home installed by Thanksgiving so the O'Dell's will once again be able to live in comfort and together as a family.

The O'Dell family purchased their S. Newfane lot as is meaning they had to remove the dilapidated mobile home and addition that was already on the property. These structures had been empty for several years and had been vandalized. There was also an abandoned car on the lot that needed to be hauled away. The O'Dell family went to work and dismantled both structures leaving huge piles of materials they intended to recycle into small structures for their pets and livestock. Mrs. O'Dell's goat would provide her with fresh milk since she was unable to tolerate cow's milk and the family would have fresh eggs and meat from their flock of chickens.

Unfortunately, a few members of the S. Newfane community decided to intervene in the O'Dell's plans and progress. According to a Newfane selectboard meeting on January 1, 2002, line 7B, item #4 a "motion was made by R. Marek and seconded by F. Bacon to have the Town Constable and the Windham County Sheriff's Department work together to file the necessary paper work to bring charges of cruelty and abuse against Patricia O'Dell and to have the animals removed from Ms. O'Dell's control. Unanimous. The Windham County Humane Society has home for all of the animals; dogs, cats, chickens and a goat."

While the O'Dell's were working to prepare there property and establish their new home they were living temporarily in a homeless shelter in Bennington. They traveled the distance of 38 miles each day to there secluded wooded lot located on a dirt road to feed and care for their animals they had built temporary shelter for. Since they were not allowed to have pets or livestock at the shelter they felt it best the animals remain on their new land. Apparently town officials were entering the O'Dell property without authority or permission to do so according to Mrs. O'Dell. At some point those authorities, without a search warrant and without warning simply removed the O'Dell's animals from their property when the O'Dell's were away.

According to another Newfane selectboard meeting on February, 7, 2002, line 7B, item #2 "R. Marek questioned what may happen if the amount due to the Windham County Humane Society if the alleged owner of the animals, Patricia O'Dell, does not pay for the housing and other services provided by the WCHS. Suggestions were made but no conclusions were reached at this time." According to Mrs. O'Dell her animals were never abused or neglected and the town had no right to enter her property illegally and seize her animals. She has since acquired the paperwork from federal court and plans to file a 'Notice of Claim' against the Newfane Town Selectboard, the Town Constable, the Windham County Sheriff's Department and the Windham County Humane Society for $10,000,000.00 and she fully intends to send the town a bill for the value of her animals.

A work crew will arrive at the O'Dell property in S. Newfane on Saturday, October 19 at 8:00 am to remove the unwanted materials and metal framing from the old mobile home. The old car will also be towed away along with remnants of the dismantled addition. Once this is done the new mobile home can be pulled up to the lot and set into place. The plumbing, water and electric will eventually be reestablished. This work is being done by volunteers from Vermont, New York, New Hampshire and Massachusetts who will donate their time, money and materials for the project at no cost to the O'Dell family. These volunteers include former homeless people, home educators, politicians, ministers, off-duty police officers, mothers, fathers, teenagers, youngsters, contractors, veterans and others. According to one of the organizers the work crew is not a formal organization but are a group of caring, concerned citizens who have seen the need to assist a family that is struggling to stay together and improve themselves. They welcome anyone who wishes to join them in this effort by simply showing up at the property this coming Saturday. They also want the media to know they are welcome as well.

According to first hand accounts SRS is using the O'Dell's homeless situation as an excuse to keep the children in their custody. SRS is also acting on an order from the Vermont Department of Education for a charge of 'educational neglect' stemming from a Home Study Hearing held November 20, 2001 for Patricia O'Dell. According to written documentation surrounding this hearing Mrs. O'Dell established her right as a Christian home educator to homeschool her children without state or local interference and that she was providing her children with more than a minimum course of study as required by state regulations. According to documentation several state witnesses accused Mrs. O'Dell of having 'standards' and expectations that were too high for her children.

When Mrs. O'Dell first began to homeschool her children she received what some might call 'approval' from the Vermont Department of Education's Home Study Consultant Natalie Casco. According to law, however, 'approval' is not needed to homeschool in Vermont, nor are there any qualifications necessary to homeschool your children. Mrs. O'Dell is a homemaker and has a high school diploma from Mt. Anthony Union High School in Bennington. Mr. O'Dell dropped out of school in the eleventh grade and is on disability for a physical problem. A parent wishing to homeschool their child need only send in an 'enrollment notification' along with a course of study covering the six basic topics and proof of screening showing the child has no impairments. A child is automatically enrolled at that time but the state can call a hearing to determine whether or not the application is complete. The key word here is 'notification'.

The state statute also reads "a person having the control of a child between the ages of six and sixteen shall cause the child to attend an approved public school, an approved recognized independent school or a home study program for the full number of days for which that school is held...." The key word here appears to be 'a' home study program, not the VT DOE's home study program. Mrs. O'Dell states that her children attend their homeschool 365 days a year. They have never been tardy or absent, since they can homeschool anywhere, anytime, even when they are with relatives or friends. In public school her children were accused by staff members as having behavior problems. In their homeschool Mrs. O'Dell says the behavior of her children is not a problem for her.

Mrs. O'Dell's children appear to be happy, healthy, normal, rambunctious children who enjoy their freedom to choose what they like to learn and learn best in the loving, secure, Christian environment that Mrs. O'Dell provides for them. They use few workbooks and almost no text books. The use reading books including classic stories and do many hands-on learning which Mrs. O'Dell says works best for all her children. Mrs. O'Dell finds little need for testing because she can see their day to day progress since she lives with them. When the need arises to concentrate more on a subject or area of interest Mrs. O'Dell takes the time to do that and will give that particular child more attention than the others. The children learn from each other as well, helping each other with reading, math or chores.

When Mrs. O'Dell feels the need for support or assistance she calls on several others in her homeschooling community for help. Because of the lack of funding and their homelessness that community has come forward and established a fund for the O'Dell children at A Teacher's Closet in downtown Rutland, a teaching/learning material supply store. The O'Dell children were all provided with book bags filled with materials, supplies and books that can be used anywhere they may be including in the car, at a campsite or in a motel. Mrs. O'Dell says that due to the lack of education on the part of the public school system she has had to do much remedial work with her three older children. Her youngest had never been to public school until SRS intervened by taking the children. SRS with the VT DOE's blessings have place Mrs. O'Dell's three youngest children into public school against her wishes. Her oldest son, Andrew, is presently not in the physical custody of SRS.

Since the taking the children by SRS from Mrs. O'Dell's custody on September 13 she has discovered her three daughters have been subjected to blood tests, physical examinations, x-rays, psychological testing, and counseling, all against their will and hers. Both she and the girls have been denied their right to freely exercise their religion and SRS is withholding the affections of Mrs. O'Dell from her daughters as a tool to get the children to cooperate with them. Mrs. O'Dell was only allowed two one-hour supervised visits with her daughters each week until her arrest yesterday. Now her children will not be able to see her at all while she sits and waits in the S. Burlington prison.

Mrs. O'Dell says the first year Natalie Casco 'approved' her homeschooling they made her agree to keep two of her children in special education classes at the local school. However, Mrs. O'Dell found this burdensome and her children were being abused and bullied whenever they were on school property, sometimes even by the teachers in charge of their care and well-being. At other times the teachers themselves would actually do the work for the O'Dell children just to show they were making progress under their tutelage.

The second year Mrs. O'Dell homeschooled she chose to withdraw her children from special education classes, which is her prerogative according to the VT Supreme Court ruling in the Karen Maple case (May 2000). After much research and discussion with other homeschoolers Mrs. O'Dell also sights the 1920's Education Trilogy (Meyer v. Nebraska, Pierce v. Society of Sisters, Farrington v. Tokushige as well as Wisconsin v. Yoder in 1972) as supporting her constitutional right to homeschool and to provide a Christian education for her children. Things were fine in her W. Haven home and the local school didn't really bother her until her home burned to the ground just after Christmas. Within two months of the fire and with no place to live the Fair Haven Elementary School principal, Gloria Moulton, began pursuing the O'Dell family with the threat of SRS intervention. According to Mrs. O'Dell the harassment and persecution continues to this day. Mrs. O'Dell's present incarceration for pursuing a Christian home education for her four children appears to attest to that fact.

There is no doubt that the precise use of terms around here has become more and more sloppy and incorrect. Socialism meant exactly what I quoted. It has now been expanded to such a point (according to your quote) that it means almost nothing or everything and is useless unless a common meaning can be agreed upon.

So, instead of admitting you are wrong you blame the societal attack on the true meanings of words.

"Collectivism" is another imprecise word which has a wide variety of meaning from totalitarianism to association of citizens for a common purpose. Traditionally limited to Communism or Fascism now it has expanded to include anything that the disgruntled malcontents who hate any State activity want to include. Is a church now collectivist?

A "church" is not a state activity. No one is forced by the state to fund or attend a church, or to meet state-mandated standards for holding church in their home. If the state did, would you support that too?

Schools are not collectivist in the traditional meaning nor any meaning I will accept. Common efforts to educate the youth are no more collectivist than a football team is collectivist. Nor are high taxes necessarily collectivist since as we know from the cartoon King John oppressed his subjects with high taxes.

The state does not run a football team nor usually fund such football teams through forced confiscation of the people's wealth. If they did, would that be okay with you too?

Since the government is established to promote the general Welfare of the people taxes can be collected by Law for many purposes. Or are you one of those "constitutionalists" who ignore what they don't like in the document yet claim to approve of the "specified" powers? State constitutions also establish the legal ability for the States to be involved in their citizens' welfare.

Our constitutional government was established to protect the rights of the individual by forming a limited, federal government. The same principles of limited government enshrined in the Constitution are applicable to State governments. The "general welfare" is a nebulous term which can be stretched to cover any and every collectivist or socialist scheme. Only an idiot (or a Democrat - same thing) believes that the mention of the "general welfare" in the Constitution empowers the federal government to do anything it wants as long as they do it for the purpose of "promoting the general welfare". The "general welfare" clause of the preamble to the Constitution, along with the rest of the preamble, lays out what the document hoped to achieve through the limited government it formed. It was not a grant of power.

As for state constitutions, apparently you completely reject the premise of the just powers of government being derived from those delegated by the people. You instead believe that when enough people get together and can constitute a force that they then can manufacture or assume powers that they did not possess individually.

One of the most nebulous concepts bandied about by the ideologues is that of "inalienable rights." How many of these are there? Does that include the right to contempt of court, to drive without a license, to shoot a gun anywhere one wishes, to do whatever they wish? Irish Travelers believe it is their inalienable right to treat everyone else as sheep to be preyed upon. DemocRATS believe it is their inalienable right to have everyone else pay for their health care, their housing and their food.

Your derision of and inability to accept or understand the concept of inalienable rights explains so much about your point of view. Unfortunately, your point of view on this concept is completely at odds with the founders of this Republic.

From: http://www.acton.org/programs/students/essay/2001winners/index.html

Public Education versus Liberty: The Pedigree of an Idea
by Michiel Visser

"[E]veryone, after he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher." –Luke 6:40

That education is in a state of crisis has become something of an axiom. Parents and politicians alike are deeply concerned about the state of our schools. Parents because their children come home from school without the ability to read or write or do sums properly, politicians because infuriated parents threaten political revolt to punish those held responsible.

However, to think that the system of education is doing badly is to miss a crucial issue. Given the general unhappiness with the results of education, the system must be doing something wrong, although many seem to have difficulties articulating just what it is or what should be done about it. But by speaking of crisis, we obscure that the education system is doing exactly what it was set up to do. There is a crisis, yet one in the original meaning of the word, "the turning point for better or worse in an acute disease or fever." The education system today is best seen as in a state of acute disease (albeit one inflicted on purpose), the current moment as that point in time where the system must choose between change and collapse.

Public education as we know it grew from a desire by 18th century monarchs to mold more malleable subjects. Pupils were not primarily supposed to learn reading, writing, arithmetic or anything else, but were meant to become obedient citizens. The history of modern education, then, is a history of social control.

The situation is bleaker yet. Public education today actively destroys children's religious belief, particularly of the orthodox Jewish and Christian type; and the traditional morality based on those religions; and, as an indirect result, the liberty–religious, political and economic–for which so many have given their lives. It may be difficult to imagine well-intentioned teachers as the direct agents of some sinister conspiracy to subvert traditional religion and morality. The answer to this paradox lies in the realization that good intentions in a malignantly structured system will produce evil outcomes.

To understand the structure of public education, and its character, we must study its history. Lord Acton famously said that "few discoveries are more irritating than those that expose the pedigree of ideas." And indeed, an exposé of the pedigree of the idea of the public education is likely to be both instructive and unsettling.

Acton set us on the right track in writing that: "[f]or Centuries it was never discovered that education was a function of the State, and the State never attempted to educate. But when modern absolutism arose, it laid claim to everything on behalf of the sovereign power." This is not merely a description of historical events, but a normative claim–one of disapproval. For Acton, education is one of many good purposes a government ought to leave to others. Two questions must be answered. Why should the government renounce good enterprises such as education? And how, when and why did the state begin to educate? I will begin with the latter question.

In 1763, the French royalist philosophe Louis-René Caradeuc de la Chalotais penned his "Essay on National Education", directed against the Catholic church, particularly the Jesuits, whose claim that "Jesus Christ is Lord" (Philippians 2:11) worked against the King. Chalotais proposed to end, in particular, the Jesuit influence on French education. "I claim the right to demand for the Nation an education that will depend upon the State alone; because it belongs essentially to it, because every nation has an inalienable and imprescriptible right to instruct its members, and finally because the children of the State should be educated by members of the State." Since the French kings were much less successful in establishing an absolutist regime than historians have sometimes suggested, the designs of Chalotais were first introduced not in France but in Prussia, where our public education system was born.

When people think about (primary) education, they think of children grouped by age, spending most of their day in a building especially designated for education, each age group in a separate room, under constant supervision of teachers, who have been trained primarily in "pedagogy." The curriculum is focused on reading, writing and arithmetic, instruction is usually collective, working from state board approved textbooks. When pupils want the teacher's attention they must raise their hand. Attendance is compulsory, often enforced by taking roll call attendance in the morning. Schools around the world operate like this. Many can hardly conceive of education as meaning anything else. Few people realize that all of these elements are a direct legacy from Prussia, where they were introduced in the 18th century by a group of Pietist reformers working on behalf of the Prussian King.

Pietism, a reformist group within Lutheranism, forged a political alliance with the King of Prussia based on a mutual interest in breaking the dominance of the Lutheran state church. The Prussian Kings, Calvinists among Lutherans, feared the influence of the Lutheran state church and its close connections with the provincial nobility, while Pietists suffered from persecution by the Lutheran orthodoxy. Bolstered by royal patronage, Pietism replaced the Lutheran church as the effective state religion by the 1760s.

Pietist theology stressed the need for "inner spirituality", which can only come about through the reading of Scripture. Consequently, Pietist founded the modern school, with all its familiar characteristics, among which the stress on literacy. The emphasis in Pietist theology on inner piety instead of merely outward conformity blended almost naturally with the political plans of the King. Seeking to replace the controlling functions of the local aristocracy, the court attempted to instill social obedience in the citizens through indoctrination. Every individual had to become convinced, in the core of his being, that the King was just, his decisions always right, and the need for obedience paramount. A series of schools edicts that for the first time made clear that education was a task of the state, finally culminated in 1763 when Frederick II made schooling compulsory for all children between five and thirteen. In 1794 all schools and universities were made institutions of the state.

Other ‘enlightened absolutists' followed suit. In Austria, Empress Maria Theresa made use of Pietist pedagogical methods as a means to strengthen her hold over Austria. The German reforms in education spread quickly through Europe, particularly after the French Revolution. A fateful trip by the school reformer Horace Mann, who toured German schools in 1843, ensured that Pietist pedagogy traveled to America. Mann was largely responsible for the introduction of compulsory public education, Prussian-style, in the United States.

Modern absolutism seeks total control over society and is thus closely connected to the notion of united sovereignty. The absolutists sought to destroy any political power that resided outside of the Court. Its main political opponents were the provincial aristocracies, with their intermediary political structures; and its main cultural opponents the Church, with its structure of parallel authority in religious matters. According to Acton, unfettered sovereignty amounts to "irresponsible authority"–which is necessarily incompatible with liberty.

The links between Christianity and liberty are well-known. Acton comments that:

[W]hen Christ said: "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's," those words .. gave to the civil power, under the protection of conscience, a sacredness it had never enjoyed, and bounds it had never acknowledged; and they were the repudiation of absolutism and the inauguration of Freedom. For our Lord not only delivered the precept, but created the force to execute it. To maintain the necessary immunity in one supreme sphere, to reduce all political authority within defined limits, ceased to be an aspiration of patient reasoners, and was made the perpetual charge and care of the most energetic institution and the most universal association in the world [the catholic Church].

The links between aristocracy and liberty are not as well known, but certainly important. Aristocrats believed that their honor depended on their ability to defend local autonomy and the dispersal of power. Locked in continuous battle with the centralizing tendencies of the royal courts, the aristocrats relied on old Roman ideas of libertas as the freedom of the noble man (broadly understood) as opposed to slavery in the form of dependence on the throne.

For centuries, Church and aristocracy exercised parts of sovereignty and thus prevented the rise of the absolute state. In the course of the 18th century, however, modern absolutism made a pact with the common people to destroy the aristocrats. Grounded on the injustice of social privileges on the basis of birth, the aristocratic political system, still taken for granted by Montesquieu as late as the 1740s, quickly crumbled as the result of the pincer movement of royalists and democrats. Once unleashed, the forces of democracy swept away the monarchy, the greatest privilege of all, as well.

It often happens that victors in a war take over the political theory of their defeated opponents. Instead of reflecting on the rich political theory of liberty that could be found in authors influenced by a combination of aristocracy and Christianity, the democrats inadvertently took over the political theory of modern absolutism, insisting on unified sovereignty, albeit one vested in the common people rather than in one person, the King. But like modern absolutism, the democrats sought to eradicate intermediary political structures and failed to understand the requirements of true liberty.

"The history of institutions is often a history of deception and illusions", according to Acton–and this is certainly true for the history of public education. The compulsory "common school" prospered throughout the Western world as the new democracies recognized the need to spread enlightenment through education. But as the Prussian King had manipulated the Pietist schools to produce more obedient subjects, so the political reformers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries turned to the public education system to produce the kind of citizens they desired. From Robespierre to Marx, Lenin and Mussolini ("At every hour of every day, I can tell you on which page of which book each schoolchild in Italy is studying")–the designs of the enemies of liberty have been the same. All have made great use of the confusion between schooling and education.

Today's education theorists, although democrats instead of tyrants, differ not substantially from Lenin and Mussolini. A prominent example is the Princeton political theorist Amy Gutman, who in her lauded book Democratic Education explains that the primary task of the public education system is to produce good "democratic citizens." Like her intellectual predecessors Gutman holds that the task of education is not to teach children knowledge or skills–no, children must become good democrats, which apparently means that they must be inculcated with those kinds of political habits that are beneficial to the social order that Ivy League professors deem appropriate.

The likes of Gutman have hijacked most institutions in most Western countries in the last fifty years. And so the Pietist schools, founded to spread the Gospel, have morphed into today's public education. For the structure of the public education system, with its state funding and compulsory character, has proved even more amenable to take-over by the modernist elite than many other institutions. The American public school, of course, pretends to be "neutral." But every education teaches a philosophy, sometimes openly, sometimes by atmosphere. Everyone knows that the philosophy modern education imparts is incompatible with traditional religion. Some parents may want this for their children, but many more do not.

One size does not fit all, especially where values (moral, political and religious) differ as widely as they do today. Taking the task of educating children entirely out of the remit of parents, who are even denied the opportunity to select their children's schools, has resulted in a massive derogation of parental responsibility and subsequently a staggering rise in social delinquency. Moreover, no experimentation is possible within the school system. Perhaps children learn better when are they are grouped according to ability instead of age. They may learn better in small groups or individually, taught by their parents, or their older siblings, or privately hired tutors. Perhaps it is not good to send children away to school all day. Perhaps a school should not even be a separate building. Heaven only knows, since the state has set the Prussian model of the late 18th century as the immutable standard forevermore.

Christians are taught to be loyal subjects, but Christians "obey God rather than men" and Christ taught that there are limits to government. The phenomenal success of home schooling demonstrates that creative alternatives to the state structure are possible. But home schooling will not be the solution for every family. Now that many parents have taken things into their own hands, thus re-conquering bits of sovereignty ceded long ago, we wait for political leaders who will not be afraid to state the truth. That the attempt of the state to educate has failed. That it is time to undo the antiquated legacy of absolutism. That we must once again separate state and school. Thus we await the liberation of our schools.

Michiel Visser, a doctoral student in legal philosophy at the University of Oxford, was awarded first place and a prize of $2,000 for his essay.

It has been 27 yrs. since I was in a classroom as a pupil. However, I have more awareness of what goes on in a classroom than you might think. Your 60% figure and 80% figure are just pulled out of the air and not relevent to a classroom in a good school with a good teacher. I have only been exposed to those through my own experience and that of my sons. I had no problem with either of their curriculems in public and private schools.

State control of schools is not as great as the mythologists like to pretend. Outside of mandating a few basic classes not much of the curriculem is demanded by the State. Most of the better schools have many electives after the required courses are taken none of which is State imposed. Local school boards make most of the major decisions i.e. your neighbors and mine.

As I explained in other posts the U.S. scores are dragged down by the explosion of single parent minority children, handicapped children and non-English speaking children which the State mandates be educated. Public schools are not allowed to throw them to the dogs as would be the case without public schools. How can "home schooled" kids be in public school classrooms? Why would they be there exposed to all the nefarious influences of the Satanic evils which run rampant there? Surely their parents would not approve?

Millions of fine kids are educated by the Public school systems of this nation. Their achievements are poo pooed and denigrated by the ideologues here and elsewhere who seem to know little of which they speak and subsist on a diet of fantasy and Bullshiite. And who are supremely thin skinned and defensive towards less than abject kowtowing to the sacred beliefs of the anti-social and ill-educated. The public schools my sons attended all had test scores far above the national average in reading and math. They also had the involvement of two loving parents. That is the most important factor in educational success.

Edison was not a true scientist but an inventor. They are not the same thing. Franklin was similiar. Einstein was educated in German technical schools. Again you have to disaggregate the scores of American students and separate out those whose social situations restrict their learning abilities. We really have a two tier public educational system in this country and they have much different results starting with much different student material. Those in the upper tier compare favorably with student anywhere in all subjects. Those in the lower tier bring down the scores of all. Sad but with their families essentially out of control there is little that can be done about it.

Ideologues are fond of broad and sweeping generalizations from small data sets and are rarely accurate in their assessments of anything much less education. I also suspect that the most fevered critics are also the least educated.

Schools without homework? Betcha learn a lot of language, Statistics, Adv. Math, Adv. Chemistry and Physics that way. NOT! And where are you going to find Greek and Latin teachers to teach that "Classical" education?

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.