And so we begin… What we begin this day, is the culmination of a nearly 20 year-long project by Kettle Moraine Publications, which includes the intellectual battle which led to the formation of the Law of the Land – our Constitution! In addition, we will be publishing those papers and proclamations which came before, including […]
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, John Adams and Teddy Roosevelt: What do these American Presidents have in common? They were all homeschooled. When we think about traditional education in America we tend to think of public schools, classrooms, and a one-size-fits-all curriculum designed to educate the masses quickly and efficiently. This type of education is not […]
Is a controversial curriculum, entrenched in New York City’s public schools for two decades, finally coming undone? Illustration by Kiel Danger Mutschelknaus In the first spring of the pandemic, as families across the country were acclimating to remote learning and countless other upheavals, I sat down on the living-room sofa with my daughter, who was […]
“I was so worried my son wouldn’t pass his kindergarten entrance exam,” one of my friends recently told me, noting that he hadn’t attended preschool. “That is my pet peeve!” another friend sputtered at the mention of preschool. She had noticed that many schools today want to make sure kids know their letters before entering […]
In his book The Nature of the American System the late Rev. R. J. Rushdoony observed, way back in 1965, that: “The ‘public school’ movement, or statist education, did not exist until the 1830s. Statist education began as a subversive movement, and its bitter, savage struggle has not yet been written. The essentials of the […]
In going through books in my research library, some of which I am going to be forced to get rid of, due to severe space limitations in our new living situation, I came across a book I didn’t even remember. It was one written by James C. Hefley called “Textbooks on Trial” and it dealt […]
In the early years of the 20th century, tuberculosis ravaged American cities, taking a particular and often fatal toll on the poor and the young. In 1907, two Rhode Island doctors, Mary Packard and Ellen Stone, had an idea for mitigating transmission among children. Following education trends in Germany, they proposed the creation of an […]
The adherents of public schooling in this country have always had a messiah complex. They have always sought to make that educational institution (so called) that they adhere to and promote appear to be the sole method of improving the lot of mankind. No longer are we supposed to lean on the Holy Scriptures and […]
“Free at last! Free at last! Thank God-Almighty that we’re Free at Last!” ~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. As the world scrambles to curtail COVID-19 with social distancing, millions of parents are facing the prospect of involuntarily homeschooling their children for the foreseeable future. As of Monday, 45 states have ordered all schools to […]
The idea that parents get in the way of children’s education and can halt their flourishing is nothing new. It’s also false! At the heart of debates around education freedom and school choice is the subtle but sinister sentiment that parents can’t be trusted. They are too busy, too poor, or too ignorant to make […]
Gary D. Barnett, a retired financial advisor and estate planner, has an informative site on the internet, where he deals with various subjects – one of which – one of the most pertinent, is public education…
“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” ~ Proverbs 22:6 Author Alex Newman’s first experience with American government education, having grown up abroad, was when he moved back to Florida and attended the University of Florida. When taking a course in […]
In their informative book Crimes of the Educators, Sam Blumenfeld and Alex Newman noted, on page 190 that “In John Dewey’s 1898 plan to dumb down America, he wrote, ‘Change must come gradually. To force it unduly would compromise its final success by favoring a violent reaction.’”
Before the War of Northern Aggression public schools as we have them today did not exist in the South. Mostly, the Southern States had the good sense to leave education where it belonged–in the hands of parents. After the War, public schools were forced upon the defeated South so that the ascendancy of the Radical […]
Imagining an entirely different educational system reveals some strengths—and flaws—of the current one. On a crisp fall morning, parents lined the school’s circular driveway in Audis, BMWs and Land Rovers, among other luxury SUVs, to drop their high-schoolers off at Detroit Country Day School. Dressed in uniforms—boys in button-down shirts, blazers with the school crest, […]
The following essay was originally published in the Fall ’91 issue of Whole Earth Review. It finally clarified for many, why American school is such a spirit-crushing experience, and suggested what to do about it. Before reading, please set your irony detector to the on position. If you find yourself inclined to dismiss the below […]
Today, I read an excellent article by Justin Spears via the Foundation for Economic Education. I would urge concerned parents to check it out. Mr. Spears starts out with: “In the first part of this article set, my colleague Mike Margeson spelled out the historical roots of the American schooling system. He clearly laid out […]
The earliest ancestor to our system of government-mandated schooling comes from 16th-century Germany. ~ Part I ~ While it’s almost universally understood that the American school system is underperforming, “reform,” too, is almost universally prescribed as the solution. Yet in other walks of life, bad ideas are not reformed—they are eliminated and replaced with better […]
Scientific research has shown how children learn to read and how they should be taught. But many educators don’t know the science and, in some cases, actively resist it. As a result, millions of kids are being set up to fail. It was 2015 and Jack Silva, the chief academic officer for the public schools […]
An assessment in three parts The title of this series is a rhetorical question. Sort of like asking “will the sun rise in the east tomorrow?” The material I have presented in the last few articles should have answered that question. When you look at the involvement in and promotion of public education by people […]