Compulsory education, psychiatry, progressive education, force, equality, outcomes, conformity and indoctrination

Separating School & State: How To Liberate American Families
by Sheldon Richman

This is taken from Sheldon Richman's book, Separating School & State: How To Liberate American Families.

It's time to admit that public education operates like a planned economy, a bureaucratic system in which everybody's role is spelled out in advance and there arefew incentivesfor innovation and productivity. It's no surprise that our school system doesn't improve: It more resembles the communist economy than our own market economy. - Albert Shanker, President, American Federation of Teachers

Chapter 2: What's Wrong With Public Schools?

School and the Therapeutic State

The union of the school system and the medical profession, which is implicit in the drug and child-abuse issues, has yielded perhaps the most absurd phenomenon of all: the legal drugging of children because they do not pay attention in class. This is Huxley's Brave New World in all its naked horror. The young son of a friend of mine was diagnosed by a school official as having attention deficit disorder (ADD) and was prescribed the powerful drug Ritalin. That diagnosis was made after a 16-minute observation of the child in class, during which he was said to have paid attention only (!) 41 percent of the time the teacher was reading a story aloud. Is any comment really necessary? Only the education establishment in league with psychiatry could decide that a child's restlessness in class is a disorder, most likely of genetic origin. Children, in the establishment's view, are supposed to be docile for hours while an adult drones on about something that may or may not interest anyone else. They are supposed to accept that they may not go to the bathroom or get a drink of water or even speak without permission. And any child who cannot live up to that modest set of requirements must be suffering from a disease that only a powerful drug can cure. That is what government schools have brought us. ADD is one of the latest diagnoses from what Thomas Szasz calls the Therapeutic State, the alliance of government and medicine, which proclaims that problems of living are, in fact, illnesses. (Dyslexia and other "learning disabilities" have a similar dubious scientific foundation writes retired pediatric neurologist Fred A. Baughman, Jr.) Control of our children - not to mention big bucks for the "special ed" profession - is a key objective on the Therapeutic State's agenda. In a recent article about the converse of ADD, High Sensitivity (otherwise known as shyness!), Hillel Schwartz writes:

Instead of examining our social, political, economic and educational institutions when confronted with problems of noise, intolerance, underachievement and inability to focus, we relegate these problems to individual and inborn traits from whose lifelong tentacles we may perhaps be released once our human geneticists have gotten up to speed.

The public schools pride themselves on teaching good citizenship. But that deserves a closer look. "Good citizenship" turns out to mean allegiance to the government and its policies. Jennifer was in first grade during the prelude to the U.S. war against Iraq. She was fed the government's line that Desert Shield and Desert Storm were defensive measures and told to wear an American flag pin each day.

The Cult of Conformity

For all the talk of diversity, a fundamental conformity pervades the school. Dissent, at least in important things, is not encouraged. Parents who object to the dominant values and who wish to give their young children a firm foundation based on their own philosophy are out of luck. Defenders of the public schools say that it is good for children to encounter diverse views; it is said to be important to the development of critical thinking. That objection misses its target. To be sure, people benefit from new information and divergent views. Even if a person is not persuaded to the new view, he will understand his own position better for having considered a conflicting position. As John Stuart Mill wrote in On Liberty, "He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that."

But using the schools to circumvent parents' right to control their children's upbringing has nothing to do with teaching criticall thinking, which is not really taught in the schools anyway. All it does is impose an authority on children possibly in violation of the parent’s victions. Children encounter views different from those held by parents without any help from schools. They spend time with other children; they watch television; they have brothers and sisters who have friends. In most homes, children will have little difficulty hearing diverse opinions. This is not the issue. The issue is, who should have the ultimate control over whom children associate with, the state or the parents? In a free society, there is only one answer. Author=Lott%2C%20John%20R.

The invocation of critical thinking serves to hide the indoctrination function of the public schools. The economist John R. Lott, Jr., has written that the public schools were established not because children would go uneducated, but rather because they would otherwise receive the "wrong" kind of education. In his view, the governing elite needs the schools to create public support for the state's activities. Since all government activity consists in the transfer of wealth from those who produced it to those who did not, such activity has the potential to create its own resistance. Those with a stake in the transfer activity have a clear interest in fostering a favorable consensus. As Lott put it:

One possible method of lowering the cost of transfer payments is to instill certain ideological beliefs - for example, the perceived legitimacy of existing transfers. If individuals believe that the government is "fair" and "legitimate," the costs of undertaking government actions are reduced.... The higher the level of transfers, the greater the opposition and thus the greater return to indoctrination.

Lott's theory has important implications. If public schools are intended to create favorable views toward government in the present, they need to create favorable views toward the government's past. Thus, it is unsurprising that the public schools' history curricula cast a favorable light on the periods in which government, particularly the federal government, accumulated unprecedented powers, such as the Progressive Era, the New Deal, and the two world wars. The public schools would have little use for a textbook that presented those watersheds as inimical to the freedom and well-being of society. Moreover, the purchasing clout of large, centralized school districts makes the potential market for any maverick textbook so srnall that publishers will rarely find such a publication financially worthwhile.

No malevolent conspiracy theory is required to grasp the indoctrination role of the public schools. The eminent journalist Walter Lippinania recognized as early as the 1920s that in a democratic system, government would use propaganda for the "manufacture of consent." Even assuming benign intentions, one can see how the governing class would wish to shape the consensus to accord with its view of the good of the nation (and undoubtedly with the requirements of its continued authority). The schools would naturally play a major role in that process. If the reader still harbors doubts about the propagandist role of the schools, they should be dispelled by education critic Richard Mitchell:

Imagine that you are one of those functionaries of government in whom there has grown, it seems inescapable, the propensity to command, in however oblique a fashion and for whatever supposedly good purpose, the liberty and property of your constituents. Which would you prefer, educated constituents or ignorant ones? ... Which would you rather face, even considering your own convictions that the cause in which you want to command liberty and property is just - citizens with or without the power of informed discretion? Citizens having that power will require of you a laborious and detailed justification of your intentions and expectations and may, even having that, adduce other information and exercise further discretion to the contrary of your propensities. On the other hand, the illinformed and undiscriminating can easily be persuaded by the recitation of popular slogans and the appeal to self-interest, however spurious. It is only informed discretion that can detect such maneuvers.

Since the schools do not encourage what Mitchell calls "informed discretion," conscientious parents are likely to have a conflict with the academic approach of the public schools. Their authority is further undermined by that conflict. When Jennifer, an early reader, was in first grade, her teacher did not want her to read or do arithmetic above her class level, although she was capable of doing both. She urged my wife and me not to carry out our own view of a proper education, which was to allow and encourage Jennifer to work at as advanced a level as she could and wished to. Despite all the talk about family support being needed for the schools to work, this teacher was telling us to "butt out." The teacher, who boasted a master's degree in reading, explained that kids enjoy reading simpler stories more than more difficult ones (not true of Jennifer) and that the class would soon learn arithmetic with the help of calculators. Calculators! In first grade! I figured that this is the arithmetic equivalent of the look-say method." We had an irreconcilable clash with the school system. We could either give in or pull Jennifer out of school at the end of the year. We pulled her out of school. She, along with sister Emily and brother Ben, has been homeschooled ever since.

The clash with the family is related to another problem created by government schools: the clash with individuality. Despite apparent attempts to grapple with individuality (such as "gifted" programs), the public schools are essentially a one-size-fits-all system. In first grade, advanced readers are mixed with nonreaders. The talented are held back. When reforms are proposed, there are voices warning that too much attention is being given to the brightest children. "Fairness" seems to dictate that the best not get too far ahead. As Murray N. Rothbard writes:

Some children are dull and demand a slower learning pace; bright children require a rapid pace to develop their faculties. Furthermore, many children are apt in one subject and quite inept in another. They should be permitted to develop themselves in their best subjects and drop the poor ones. Whatever educational standards are imposed from outside, injustice is done to all - to the less able who cannot absorb any instruction, to those with different sets of aptitudes in different subjects, to the bright children whose minds would like to be off and winging in more advanced courses. Similarly, whatever pace the teacher sets in class is bound to be injurious to almost all - to the dull who cannot keep up and to the bright who lose interest. Moreover, those in the middle, the "average," are not always the same in all classes and often are not the same from day-to-day in one class .

Public education acts to force every student to learn at the same pace, and to fit within a strict mold of "average mediocrity". The truth about students and learning is that they all have different interests, natural capabilities, and speed of learning (which varies even from subject to subject for the same student). A valid educational approach would be to develop a system which recognizes these difference and allows each student to progress at their own speed, without any enforced conformity to "class speed" - neither too fast nor too slow, but just right for each student.

I have investigated the field of education and the only method which recognizes this (and also gives a workable method of study itself) is Education Alive - a group which disseminates the simply, but eminently workable study techniques of L. Ron Hubbard (Basic Study Manual). Hubbard is the same guy who founded Dianetics and Scinetology, but this subject of study is completely divorced from these two subjects. Hubbard actually had to develop his study methods because the staff under his expanding Scientology structure were incapable of understanding and doing what he instructed. So he did some research, found almost all extant study "methods" and "approaches" to be largely a failure, and came up with his "study technology". It enables anyone to learn by developing their own study skills, which they use in the study of anything. It is also "application" oriented - it stresses results, action, getting things done, and achievement. It encourages success and enables anyone to improve in any subject when correctly understood and applied. People who value their children's education find this an extremely useful study tool .

First, it teaches someone how to study - something which is taught no where else - modern psychologivcal theories assume you either can or you can't - and if you can't they tell you that you have a "learning disability" or a "mental illness" - and then they try to give you drugs to "cure" your "mental illness". The truth is that many children end up on drugs because of the failure of the current system to teach them how to study - the idea of teaching someone how to study doesn't even exist within the public education system! Second, it can be applied to the learning of any subject. Third, it utilizes the idea of "checksheets", which each student does at his own speed (so no one is forced to go too fast, and no one is forced to slow down). It is completely student-oriented! Forth, the student learns from well constructed study checksheets, the teacher doesn't "teach" per se - but the teacher's job instead is to help the students do this - the teacher is there to ensure the sudent understands and applies the study methods, and gets through their study materials.

Of course, if the effectiveness of these methods were undesrtood and applied, "teachers" as we now know them would become extinct and so would all the absurd psychological theories which have wed themselves to the subject of "modern education". The Teacher's unions and psychiatry will fight tooth and nail to prevent this - to protect their own financial interests. And sadly, the more truth there is to the actual effectiveness and workability of such a study method, the more they will fight to stop it - and to hell with the education and success of all the children!

I find it absurd that with the millions of dollars spent on education over the past 100 years that there is no official or even unoffficial subject called "study" which is taught anywhere - not in grade schools, junior high, senior high, or colleges. Hubbard developed one, and a very workable one, in less than 6 months. It seems the guys in charge of public education aren't really trying, don't really want anyone learning how to effectively learn, and have other purposes in mind for "public education", as described in this chapter.

Here is a subject that people wish to avoid these days. A misconception of the idea of equality has led many people to eschew the idea that individuals differ in their talents, intelligence, energy, ambition, and so forth. There is a widely held assumption that children are essentially the same and would appear the same if only they were guaranteed equal school facilities. Thus, if some children achieve less than others, that is thought to be a sign of unfairness. When confronted with the palpable failure of the public schools, they reject the private competition alternative - because it cannot guarantee "equality" - and call for greater taxpayer funds for the schools. They go even further and propose transferring money from the wealthier school districts to the poorer school districts. Indeed, for the egalitarians, it is not enough to try to raise the lower levels; the higher levels must be lowered. Jonathan Kozol, one of those egalitarians, writes, "Equity, after all, does not mean simply equal funding. Equal funding for unequal needs is not equality."" He goes on to say that simply giving more money to poor districts would not accomplish his egalitarian goal: "Since every district is competing for the same restricted pool of gifted teachers, the "minimum" assured to every district is immediately devalued by the district that can add $10,000 more to teacher salaries.... The poorest districts are left where they were before the minimum existed."

Unlike others in his camp, he wishes to keep the property tax as the main support of the public schools. (The sales tax is regressive.) He wants the money to go to a central pool and "equally" distributed to all districts in a state. That way, the money will be transferred from rich to poor. He counsels his allies not to try to fool wealthier people by shrouding that transfer:

No matter what devices are contrived to bring about equality, it is clear that they require money-transfer, and the largest source of money is the portion of the population that possesses the most money. When wealthy districts indicate they see the hand of Robin Hood in this, they are clear-sighted and correct. [Emphasis in orginal. ]

There are two issues mixed up here. Unquestionably, the inner-city children have been cruelly condemned by government to what are called schools. As Thomas Sowell has said, there are better automobiles in the ghettos than schools. Equally certain is that abolishing the public schools and allowing the free market to provide education would make better schooling available to those children. But that does not mean that bad government schools are the only thing that stand in the way of perfect equality. When Thomas Jefferson wrote that "all men are created equal," he meant it in only one sense: they are born equal in their moral entitlement to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. He certainly did not mean that everyone was equal in musical ability, or mathematical capability, or even in abstract reasoning. We could not all be top rocket scientists if only we were given the same education and supportive environment. We may not know why some people are better suited to particular vocations than others, but we know that it is so.

Variation is the rule among the living. Human beings differ widely in their internal physical makeup. As the biochemist Roger J. Williams has written:

Experts agree that every individual tends to have a pattern of mental abilities or potentialities which is distinctive for him or her alone.

Thus, equality of outcomes is a chimera, an impossibility, because of the fundamental differences of individuals. We should no more expect equality of outcomes than we expect people's fingerprints to be the same. Nor should we long for equality in any except the Jeffersonian sense. "Enthusiasm for equality should actually be viewed as anti-human," writes Rothbard. "It tends to repress the flowering of individual personality and diversity and, indeed, of civilization itself."

When confronted with these facts, some people, including some conservatives, retreat to a defense of "equal opportunity." We cannot guarantee equal results, they say, but we should guarantee equal opportunity. The schools are said to be an important factor in that guarantee.

But the new principle is as doomed as the first. How can there really be equal opportunity given the differences among families and the values they inculcate in children and the variation among individuals? Does the child whose parents shun hard work and responsibility have exactly the same opportunity for success as one whose parents teach those virtues by example? Does someone lacking an aptitude for mathematics have the same opportunity that Einstein had to become a great scientist? Hardly. Does the child of parents who have no musical talent have the same opportunity to become a musician as the child of a world-renowned violinist? How could we equalize the opportunity? Should a talent scout be compelled to give the first child the same chance as the second, even though in his wish to economize his time, he may pass over the first for an audition for the second?

The schools' pursuit of equality is bound up with the new "feel good" curriculum, the point of which is ostensibly to instill self-esteem in students. That is what government education has turned to now that it has virtually given up reading, writing, and arithmetic. But it should be obvious that self-esteem cannot be taught or instilled directly. It is the internal reward one earns from real accomplishment

Modern psychological theories abound with theories and methods to "help" people increase their "self-esteem". Teachers are taught to not tell a student his is "wrong". If a student looks at a picture of a horse, and calls it a big dog, the teacher sholdn't correct him (because this could have drastic effects on his self-esteem - this is absurd. . .), but say, "good, that does look like a large dog". Part of this stupidity involves the notion that everybody has a right to think, believe and conceive things however they choose - even if this means redefining the language in their own mind. Of course, these fools (modern educational psychologists), don't understand that a language involves exact definitions of things and relationships, and should be taught that way, so human beings can effectively communicate with each other. Maybe it's true that ultimately, no one can really understand each other, but we can sure try, by at least agreeing on the meaning of words.
Confidence is built through a series of small achievements obtained through study and application of learned skills. A workable study method would understand this, and give every student a series of successes, so they each naturally exhibited competence in what they learned, and each established self-esteem through true accomplishment. Again, the study methods of Education Alive take this into account, and the student develops confidence and self-esteem, naturally, through achievement, and not through contrived behavioral psychology nonsense. Interestingly, Hubbard developed these methods over 30 years ago! They have been accessible to the education establishment the entire time, yet never used. Again, it truly makes one wonder what the true purpose of modern public education is.
Keeping to their habitual approach, modern psychology addresses only the symptoms of some problem, never dealing with actual underlying true causes, and attempts to handle these symptoms with unworkable methods based on ludicrous theories. First, they don't have any useful method of teaching students how to learn - something you would expect from a subject called "educational psychology". Second, when the students can't study, or are slow, instead of handling the true problem - no subject of "how to study" - they instead declare these students to have "mental disorders" such as "minimal brain dysfunction", "learning disability" or "attention-deficit disorder". The dullness, observational weakness, and stupidity of these psychological "professionals" would be funny if the results of their theories and methods weren't so disastrous on our children and society - drugging them with dangerously addictive chemicals which have numerous side-effects. Parading as "professionals" and "authorities", these psychologists and psychiatrists possess and display the lowest form of intellectual medicocrity. They are a true product (displaying extreme mediocrity and a poor ability to observe and learn) of the theories and methods they force the rest of us to follow.

There is only one proper notion of equal opportunity: the absence of legal barriers to freedom of action. Jim Crow laws and apartheid are examples of government policies that deny people opportunity; those policies made peaceful actions by certain groups of people illegal. Thus those policies violated their rights. But any government action that transfers wealth from those who have earned it to others cannot be defended in the name of equality. Since it violates the rights of those whose property is taken, such policies violate the Jeffersonian notion of equality: equality, that is, before the law. Ironically, the public schools violate the liberty of poor people and deny them freedom to pursue opportunities by taxing them and forcing their children to go to bad schools. Those policies should be ended, not in the name of equality, but in the name of liberty and decency.

In summary, public schools, with their compulsory attendance laws, strike a fundamental blow at the family as the unit of childrearing and at individuality. Many important decisions are transferred from parents and children to government officials, including teachers. Everyone today bemoans the condition of the family. Everyone believes it has something to do with the lack of civility and the depravity of modern society. The most talked-about sources of that condition are welfare, television violence, and video games. But little thought has been given to how the public schools contribute to the weakening of the family. The government school, which most children must attend, is set up as a subtle rival of the family, which cannot even decide to take a vacation between September and June. Charles Murray has pointed out that communities wither when their functions are usurped. The same can be said of families. As the government, through its schools, has taken on more and more of the family's traditional functions, and moved those functions further away, the family to some extent has been drained of its vitality and reason for being. State schools remove the education function from the family. The state commands the parents to send the children to school. The state, not the parents, chooses which school children attend. That schooling is represented as free. What is free is valued less than what one chooses to pay for. All of that adds up to a dilution of the moral authority and functions of the family. The fundamental issue is who raises the children and sees to their education: the state or the parents? In a free society, there can be only one answer. The upshot is that the way to begin revitalizing the family is to abolish the government's schools.

Get The Book!

Separating School & State: How To Liberate American Families by Sheldon Richman - the complete book with more details & facts about the scam known as modern public education.

Suggested Reading List - the Demise of the Educational System - OBE (Outcome-Based Education), NEA (National Education Association), educational psychology, German psychology & influences, demise of public education, educational sabotage, Wundt, Pavlov, Dewey, Skinner, Watson.

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