'To Train School Children in ... Loyalty to the State'by
Vin Suprynowicz Don't you love it when a member of the ruling class slips up and admits to the peasants what they're really up to? For years, I've called for the complete shutdown of America's massive archipelago of mandatory government youth propaganda camps. The defenders of this Largest Jobs Program in History shriek and bellow that I must be "against education," which is sort of like charging those who opposed slave galleys with being against ocean navigation. Read de Tocqueville for his amazement at the high level of literacy – including an ability to discuss complex political issues – found among American workingmen of the 1830s – 20 years before Dewey and Mann launched today's government-run youth camps on the Prussian model in Massachusetts in 1852. The New
York Times reported Feb. 27 that fewer than half of American
teenagers know when the Civil War was fought, and one in four believe
Columbus sailed to the New World some time after 1750. About a quarter
of the teenagers were unable to correctly identify Hitler as Germany's
chancellor in World War II, instead identifying him in a multiple-choice
test as a munitions maker or premier of Austria. California's 2nd District Court of Appeal on Feb. 28 declared the parents of most of that state's 166,000 home-schooled children to be outlaws, ruling the law requires parents to send their children to full-time state-certified public or private schools or else have them taught at home by "credentialed" tutors – which most home-school parents, presumably, aren't. "California courts have held that ... parents do not have a constitutional right to homeschool their children," Justice H. Walter Croskey said in the 3-0 ruling, which makes it clear those parents can be criminally prosecuted for failing to comply. And did Judge Croskey and his black-robed ruling-class pals say this was because the home-schoolers weren't doing as well at teaching reading, writing and 'rithmetic? Of course not. They couldn't say that, because tests consistently shows home-school kids, taught by parents without state "certificates" or licenses, score 30 to 37 percentile points higher than their public school peers across all subjects. So why ban home-schooling, if the academic results are far better? Judge Croskey obligingly explained: "A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare." Imagine that. "Loyalty to the state." Almost as if what they're running are, I don't know ... mandatory government youth propaganda camps, or something. K.G. writes in: "Dear Mr Suprynowicz, I wasn't always a homeschooler. I stumbled upon J.T. Gatto while researching school reform after dealing with my local school district and getting nowhere but Delphi'd and a SLAPP letter. "I read 'Underground History' – in fact, I was unable to put it down. It explained HOW IT HAS BEEN DONE, how Americans have been turned into stupid, apathetic, self-absorbed, toadying sheep. ... At this stage of the game the social engineers no longer even pretend to educate. They 'socialize', they 'mold minds', they decide who will go to college and 'lead' and who will dig ditches for the local business-government or the national corporate state. "After finishing that book I had to get my kids out, pronto. I regret that they spent their most formative years in the govschool gulag learning to take orders and stand in line, raising their hands to go to the toilet. In fact, when I told my youngest daughter, starting '3rd grade', that we would be homeschooling, she asked me if she would be allowed to go to the toilet whenever she wanted. I almost cried. ..." A local attorney writes in: "Mr. Suprynowicz – Government schools are liberal indoctrination camps, nothing more. My son was shown 'An Inconvenient Truth' during 4th grade and now berates my wife for using plastic bags. He is a GATE student (gifted) but curiously received a 'C' after he disagreed with his teacher that global warming was caused by human activity. He said no humans were around when the last ice age melted and for that he was punished. "His teacher went on to teach the class that President Bush used cocaine and that the moon landing was staged. She had white students apologize to black students for slavery and (said) that taxpayers should pay reparations because slavery destroyed the black family. He was also taught that a perfect electric car was made many years ago but the oil companies killed those responsible. ... "My cousin home schools his children. His son who is 15 ... is taking college level classes through independent study. He is showing an affinity for geometry and physics. ... He is reading books about maritime history ... non-stop even though his reading 'level' is below what some standardized test says it should be. "When he attended a public school in Belmont, Calif., he was put in special classes for learning disabled children. No doubt his teachers had high hopes he would become a dishwasher. ..." J.B. writes in from upstate New York that John Taylor Gatto's "book, Dumbing Us Down was instrumental in helping me make my decision to homeschool my two children, and we are in our fourth year of doing so. ...
"I dream of a day when the parents rise up, en masse, and scream for their release!" March 19, 2008 Vin Suprynowicz [send him mail] is assistant editorial page editor of the daily Las Vegas Review-Journal and author of The Black Arrow. Copyright © 2008 Vin Suprynowicz |
