Homeschoolers … you’re next.
The feds have captured the public schools … and now they wanna make sure you can never escape.
Orwell yourself and come to terms with what awaits your children on the horizon of government controlled education.
Huxley yourself into the world of tomorrow when they will be plugged into lifetime situations based not on their passions … but on some algorithmic prescription burped out by some electronic ouija-motherboard.
Pushing Parents Around is a time-honored tradition among America’s snob class.
Meet Horace Mann.
He was America’s first authoritarian educrat to view public schools as social engineering centers … where the ills of the masses could be made … um … less disgusting.
He was a social-snot … with a special loathing for the Irish. Irish Catholics, to be precise.
Listen in …
“Those now pouring in upon us, in masses of thousands upon thousands, are wholly of another kind in morals and intellect …”
He said it … not me.
So other Massachusetts’ highbrows put him in charge … saw him as the society-saving antidote to “perverse moral education provided to children by their corrupt parents.”
Why do all these school folks hate parents anyway?
Horace Mann also hated homeschooling … even though the Massachusetts literacy rate in 1850 was 97 percent. That’s better than right now!
It wasn’t that parents were doing a lousy job … they were doing too good of a job! And that had to stop!
They were raising free thinkers. Independent sorts. With ethics preferred by mom and dad.
Mann thought youngsters should be sufficiently educated … but not too sufficiently educated. Just enough to fill the more menial and obedient roles that were important to Mr. Mann’s comfort. Sniff! Sniff!
Fast forward a century and a half … and parents face nearly identical threats from today’s government magistrates … and from the teachers they pay.
Remember Arne Duncan? The Obama reform czar? He went full Horace Mann on suburban mothers. Said they were deluded about their children … and their education.
“All of a sudden, their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought … “
And he said government would rescue these kids … because you ladies are just like those 19th century Irish yucks.
So it’s deja vu all over again …
Your children must be saved … from you. Even if you’re not Irish. And that’s what they’ve been doing for the last decade. Except they’ve made a mess of things.
They’ve imposed the weird and wild on your kids. New theories about math and reading and testing. New attitudes about play and rigor. New codes of speech. New mores. New tolerances. New traditions. Even new histories.
And they never bother with your approval …
just your total compliance.
The National Education Association … the nation’s largest teachers’ union … is threatened by homeschoolers. Afraid they might create a popular alternative to government schools. Fearful they might embarrass public education.
The union desperately claims that “parental choice [to homeschool] cannot provide the student with a comprehensive education experience …”
Yet “homeschooled students typically score 15 to 30 percentile points higher than public school students on standardized academic achievement tests.”
They also “earn higher GPAs in college and graduate at higher rates than their public school peers.”
Unions want homeschooled kids banned from public school sports and other activities … even though their parents pay public school taxes. They make up stuff … say that homeschooled kids lack proper socialization … but there’s no proof at all.
Homeschoolers threaten the government monopoly on education … and that boils their wrath. That’s why they want them back … under their thumb.
So it’s gauntlet time.
Another David and Goliath moment.
They want your children and your schools stuffed into that-one-size-fits-all box. And no child gets out … because parents cannot be trusted to do right by their own children.
Time to walk right up to this fight.
Denis Ian and Michelle Moore
CLICK HERE to LISTEN “Mad World” – Gary Jules
Referenced;
NHERI Research Facts On Homeschooling
NEA RESOLUTIONS – Opposition to Private & Homeschooling
NEA Global Education Initiative
Missives Worth Reading 
Dennis, another brilliant commentary on the state of ps today. With some history I never knew. All I knew was my Dad’s grade school was named Horace Mann! (Back in the 50s).
Our current system will collapse due to lack of funds and function. Can we afford to be “Scarlett O’Hara”and “think about that anutha day”?! Thank you once again for keeping the education of all OUR children in the forefront.
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Horace Mann was the father of today’s compulsory Government schools. http://www.uspie.org
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Thank you for your timely piece today! My family is full of educators. My father and sister among them. Dad was sickened by what he was seeing in the 70s. My sister stopped teaching because of what she was experiencing! And, very sadly one of my sons decided not to pursue the field of education! Sad! A great loss. Im sure others feel the same. Hopefully , parents and grandparents will awaken, and join in the battle to safeguard our children’s learning experiences. Thank you
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