Do You Support the Separation of School & State?

Say goodbye to independent thinking skills when you send a child off to public school. When I sent my child to eighth grade after homeschooling for five years, a teacher commented to me that my child had amazing independent thinking skills which were not found in the other children in her classroom. Not surprising - all the other children were trained to follow the pack, do as they were told, and not to think for themselves. Is that what you want for your child?

The website for the Separation of School and State states that government schooling "fosters unquestioning obedience, acceptance of authority, herd mentality, and dependency." Also it "manufactures 'equality' by lowering standards" and "discourages individuality, innovation, curiosity, creativity and overall excellence." I agree with all of these points.

Because I wanted my children to follow their own unique interests and to think creatively, I decided to homeschool them throughout their elementary school years.

When my child went to eighth grade I was given a parents' handbook to explain school policies. I was shocked to see that it stated that twelve-year-old children could not only get school personnel to take them to the health clinic behind their parents' backs for contraceptives, but school authorities could also take girls to get an abortion without their parents ever knowing a thing about it! Abortion is a life-threatening procedure and parents were cut out of the decision making process! (This is California law - your state may be different.)

But that is only the beginning. I also learned that whenever a CPS agent wanted to interview children at school, the school would allow that to happen without even telling the children that they had the right to refuse such interviews or request the presence of their parent(s) or attorney. Even though I had a Hatch Amendment Letter on file with the schools, when a school official called CPS with a false accusation, the school ignored my Hatch Amendment Letter and let the CPS agent interview my child anyhow. You cannot trust school employees to follow the laws, or even to know the laws.

Naturally I questioned all these things and discovered that when you enroll your child in a government school there's a bit of small print allowing the schools to act as if they were the parents for the time the child is in school. And school authorities didn't know what a Hatch Letter was and had never seen one before I gave them mine.

When my child went to school I was informed that another vaccination was needed. Because I believed my child might have a sensitivity to the mercury in vaccinations, I requested an exemption from further vaccinations. Sure enough - the school officials had never heard of someone refusing vaccinations! They thought it was mandatory!

They showed me their vaccination form and I turned it over expecting to see the line where I could sign to make my child exempt. Unfortunately they had photocopied the form and didn't bother to photocopy the reverse side. "Not right," I told them, and I had to go home and download the correct form from the State Department of Education's website.

Apparently the government wanted to train children to be good little soldiers and factory workers. They wanted children to learn to obey orders. They wanted them to do as they were told:

"Line up!"

"Raise your hand!"

"Follow directions!"

Those are the most important lessons taught in government schools.

John Taylor Gatto, in his book, The Underground History of American Education, wrote:

"Traditional American school purpose -- piety, good manners, basic intellectual tools, self-reliance, etc. -- was scrapped to make way for something different. Our historical destination of personal independence gave way slowly to Prussian-purpose schooling, not because the American way lost in any competition of ideas, but because for the new commercial and manufacturing hierarchs, such a course made better economic sense."

Government brainwashing starts when the children arrive at school and the bell rings. They get up, first thing, face the American flag, and put their hands over their hearts, and say The Pledge of Allegiance:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands: one Nation under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.

Yikes. Pound that into your mind for a while and you might really believe there is "liberty and justice for all" here in the USA - until you grow up and learn there are lots of people in the USA enduring massive suffering and trauma caused by false accusations by government agents, wrongful convictions, and violations of constitutional rights.

Liberty and justice for all?

Educators should not lie to children!

Still that Pledge is forced on school children day after day like it is some kind of religion or a standard of ultimate truth. The way it is pounded into the consciousness of children is absolutely cult-like.

Unfortunately the Pledge is just the tip of the iceberg. Government schools are forcing sex education, diversity training (acceptance of gay lifestyles) and other unnecessary programming on children as young as kindergarteners these days. I wonder how you feel about that. My feeling is that young children don't need sex education of any kind, and that when they are ready for it the information should come from their parents, not from teachers with different value systems.

The website for the Separation of School and State states the frightening fact that too many parents either ignore or are not aware of: "Government run schools become tools for special interest groups who wish to target children with their message. Parents would be shocked to know that schools allow many special interest groups access to their children in a variety of ways, ranging from allowing psychologists to conduct studies on kids to allowing groups to do special programs in schools to allowing teachers to use materials from these groups in the classroom. Parents have virtually no say in these matters."

In fact, government school educated children can be terrible examples for each other. I noticed that my child became very depressed after enrolling in public school for eighth grade. It turned out my child was being teased unmercifully by other students, one in particular. My child asked teachers for help but they were ineffective in protecting my child from teasing and bullying.

The situation made me reflect on how beneficial government school was for children, compared to homeschooling (what we were doing before that year.) With homeschooling my children had mainly adults as examples of how to behave though I tried to make sure they also had social contact with other children. Once my child got into the local government school system, the examples of how to behave consisted mainly of other children - many of them severely troubled. Which is better for children, really?

I know people make a big deal of "socialization" thinking that's a negative issue for homeschoolers, but the kind of socialization that goes on in government schools includes bullying and teasing, as well as other worse things (trust me, I know this for a fact.) Is that the kind of socialization kids really need to endure?

People worry that homeschoolers "won't be exposed to the real world" when in fact it is government schooled children that are held back from the real world with chain link fences. Homeschooled children experience the REAL world daily, without being fenced in. They are exposed to other people of all ages rather than being grouped only with children of their own chronological age. Which environment is more REAL, and which is healthier for kids? Which environment encourages good education? Which one allows for better one-on-one interaction with protective adults?

Statistics show that education in the United States is sub-standard compared with education in other countries. Refer to the comparative statistics if you need confirmation of that: Education Statistics by country. The fact is, the American public education system doesn't work because it is designed to teach obedience rather that to stimulate intellect.

The "No Child Left Behind" federal legislation is unpopular with teachers, students, and parents. Strangely every state seems to follow this (for the purpose of getting federal funding, no doubt) even though this legislation is a direct violation of the Tenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.

For all these problems, we the American taxpayers pay hundreds of billions of dollars annually. Do you think it is worth what we're spending?

Schools have become heavy-handed about absences because they're desperate for ADA funding. (ADA = Average Daily Attendance.) If they can get kids to attend school regularly they receive about $4000 to $10,000 per pupil per year. The more children they can rope into these schools, the more secure their jobs are.

I could go on for hours writing about things I don't like about the USA public education system. Instead I'll refer you to the website for the Separation of School and State where these issues are probed in depth.

The important thing to mention here is that there are viable alternatives. Children can be homeschooled. Parents can learn to take responsibility for their children's education instead of sending them to the government for brainwashing and programming under the guise of free education. People can contribute to charities set up to help educate the children of the poor. Private schools can flourish in a free market economy, competing with one another to provide an exceptionally effective education.

There are lots of options. All we need now is a massive societal change.