When the Berlin Wall collapsed and the Soviet empire disintegrated, Americans took great pride in their heritage of individual liberty and free markets. "Capitalism is superior to socialism," Americans told the world. "Free enterprise is the economic system the world should adopt." Yet, despite their apparent devotion to freedom, Americans refuse to let go of their model of socialist, central planning: public schooling, an institution that is found in Russia, China, Cuba, the United States, and all other countries of the world. How does public schooling work? It is run by a political commission, either at the local, state, or national level, by which politicians or bureaucrats plan the educational decisions of thousands, sometimes millions, of children. How is it funded? The state uses its coercive power of taxation to take money from some, even those who do not have children, to fund the schooling of others - a perfect embodiment of the Marxian principle, "From each according to ability, to each according to need." What do the students learn? They learn official, approved doctrine from government - approved schoolteachers who use government-approved textbooks. How do public schools get their customers? Through compulsory attendance laws by which adults are commanded to deliver their children at the age of six to these government - approved institutions. Read all this following the links below. Preface - What would education look like under a free market? As with religion, families would decide the best educational vehicles for each of their children. And entrepreneurs in the educational marketplace would provide those vehicles. This is not what exists in the USA now. What exists is more and more taking the form of socialized education with very exact governmental plans regarding curricula and goals. This would be fine, except the goals are not academic, but have more to do with attitudes, beliefs and behaviors. Introduction - Why has public schooling reached this stage of deterioration and level of disappointment in the eyes of practically everyone? The reason is one that most Americans feel uncomfortable admitting: the public school system has failed because it is a system of socialist education. And, as a result, it has manifested all the symptoms and consequences that have usually been observed in all other examples of socialist enterprises. Having a near-monopoly control over the supply of educational services in the United States, those who manage and work in the public schools have lost all attention to the needs of the consuming public. W(h)ither Public Schools? - Maybe the schools are doing precisely what they were designed to do or at least what they cannot help but do. Maybe we just do not like the results now that we see them. Someone said that the ends pre-exist in the means. Is it possible that with the public schools, we have gotten exactly what we asked for? The public schools, despite their widely recognized problems, have a mystique that prevents people from imagining life without them. You would think we have always had them. We haven't. What's Wrong With Public Schools? - 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. 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. Why There Are Public Schools - Why were the public schools ever established? Did the private sector fail to set up schools or set up too few of them? Were large segments of society barred from obtaining education? Was the education of poor quality? The answer to the last three questions is no. The public schools were not established to make up for any deficiency in people's ability to learn to read, write, do arithmetic, and acquire knowledge of other subjects. The government schools were set up for another purpose entirely. This purpose was to instill specific attitudes and behaviors in the populace to bring about a version of social utopia. Books: 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. Say NO To Psychiatry! Back to Education Main Page Back to Main SNTP Page
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