On January 16th I read an article by James Ostrowski about public schools in Buffalo, New York and why they are not making the grade (no pun intended).
Mr. Ostrowski is a trial and appellate lawyer in Buffalo, New York and also the author of a book called Progressivism: A Primer on the Idea Destroying America. He also has a website. I have not had a chance to read his book here mentioned, but it sounds like it would be a good one.
Mr. Ostrowski, in the Lew Rockwell article, commented on the public schools in Buffalo, New York, and you can, by extention, multiply his commentary on public education in Buffalo because it would also apply to most other cities and towns across the country. The problems he discussed are not unique to this one city, but rather reflect the general trend nationwide.
He noted that: “…government schools are bureaucracies and bureaucracies are organizations run primarily for the benefit of bureaucrats. This is rooted in the nature of bureaucracies as having unilateral power over others. Power tends to lead to unilaterally beneficial relationships as there is a lack of incentive to cooperate and accommodate the interests of those under the control of the bureaucracy, that is, the taxpayers, parents, and students.” In other words, the concerns of parents, taxpayers and students are the absolute last thing taken into consideration, if at all. Mr. Ostrowski does not think this problem can be fixed. He is right. I don’t either. He points out, and sadly, this is all too true, that those trying to make this failing system work are al too often conservative folks who lack a “coherent ideology.” In other words, they work at trying to make a bad system good–and seem willing to bear the unnecessary expense of trying to do so.
He made another interesting statement. Food for thought for you all. He said: “Third, school board elections are rigged and controlled by special interest groups…Unions and other special interest groups tend to control these elections and are aided by the very small turnout. This can’t be fixed…” Ask the folks in Kanawha County, West Virginia, during the mid-1970s Textbook Protest there how they were able to “fix” the problems they had with their school board. And believe me, their meetings were not sparsely attended! They had one honest member on the school board then, Alice Moore, and she stood up for the parents and kids and their rights. Needless to say she was outvoted by the rest of the board in most cases, and they had one board member, who, at a school board meeting, was actually caught in a bald-faced lie. He just laughed it off as though nothing had happened and continued on with what he was saying–and as far as the agenda he was pursuing, nothing had happened. The truth had briefly gotten in the way, but that was of no importance!
Mr. Ostrowski observed something that Christians and patriotic people need to stop and reflect on. He said: “Conservatives, like 90% of Americans, have been captured by the progressive ideology that has ruled the country for the past 100 years. That being the case, they are reluctant to draw the obvious conclusions: government schools are bad for your kids; they can’t be fixed; they can’t be reformed; and the only solution is to pull your kids out now.” Again, he is right on the money. How many of us have been saying the exact same thing for decades now, and almost no one wants to hear it, especially Christians, who, in many cases, have come to unwittingly accept public schools as some sort of secular deity. I have said this before, but it bears repeating. When my wife and I decided that we had to home school our children, back in the 1980s instead of enrolling them in the local public indoctrination center, we got more opposition from Christians than we did from anyone else. The local worldly folks couldn’t have cared less. The Christians that we knew, most of them, were simply aghast at the idea that we had spurned the local public brain laundry in favor of home schooling. That tells me that the educations they had received, probably in public schools, had indoctrinated them in progressive ideology, even if they didn’t realize it.
It was observed by Mr. Ostrowski that “Reformers have been trying to fix what ails the government schools for at least fifty years. They have failed.” They will always fail–because the public school system is not about to be reformed from its original agenda which is the obliteration of any Christian influence or worldview in this country. And when I say that I am not indicting everyone who has ever taught in a public school. However, I am indicting the system–because those that founded it and most that run it today are well aware of that agenda. There are lots of alternatives out there today for families, of which home schooling is one.
Public education, in the past, has had the glowing support of people like Karl Marx, Horace Mann, and John Dewey, to name a few. Do some homework and check out these sterling individuals on the Internet while you still can. But, first and foremost, get your kids out of these schools and most preferably into some sort of Christian educational alternative.
Written by Al Benson Jr. for and published by Revised History ~ January 17, 2017.
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