We Don't Get No Education.....

I' ve had numerous conversations over the years with parents about the perils of sending your kids to the government children's prisons--my term for government schools, and a more accurate term than those used by the government or the media.

Some tell me that the academics at their kids' school are better than the ones we hear about all the time. Maybe so. Maybe not. Maybe the parents are actively involved, helping the kids learn their school work and even going above and beyond.

What only a relative few parents realize is that, since the federal government has ignored the US Constitution and gotten involved with education, all schools are standardized to a very high degree, in many respects. Even the much touted exceptions--the magnet schools.

Magnet schools started well after my kids graduated, but I'm given to understand that they actually are superior academically to "ordinary" schools--the ones that are inflicted 'pon the poor kids. The ones in which seem to tolerate muggings, rapes, shooting, gangs, knifings and all manner of mayhem except learning.

All these government children's prisons, though, have one thing in common: they are propaganda mills. Well, two things--they're also indoctrination centers. Run largely by leftists, they continually bombard the kids with statist propaganda and indoctrinate them in every sort of leftist cause imaginable, from global warming to fear of weapons and self defense to government can do no wrong and many, many more.

The real reason government school fascists hate home schoolers is that parents won't inject the students with the "proper" indoctrinations and keep them physically restrained in those little desk-chair combos where the only actions that are not forbidden are shut up and listen.

Any child who shows any spunk, of course, is declared ADHD and doped up. We can't allow any initiative or enthusiasm to disrupt the rest of the child-zombies, can we?

Schools try to take moral and philosophical education away from the parents and in many cases, seem to be trying to separate kids from their families and demonize parents who aren't toeing the "proper" leftist line.

All of this is bad enough, but it gets worse. They do this stuff during time when they should be teaching academic subjects. Hence, academics suffer. Kids graduate school unable to read well, unable to perform simply math and with no concept of the history of the country and the world.

But, it's ok. Your kid did well on the standardized tests. They're fine.

No, they're not.

Government has made up standardized tests--nothing new, it began decades ago--that are supposed to tell a number of things, including whether the student will perform well in college and how well he's learned what the primary and high school purports to have taught.

It actually tells how good the student is at rote memorization, and not much more.

At no time does the government children's prison system attempt to teach students effective uses of their rationality. Nor does it attempt to teach critical thinking. The history they offer is stunted and distorted. Economics, if offered at all, assumes the need for government intervention and the market's inability to regulate itself.

Government children's prisons teach sex education, something better left to the child's parents--or even to the child himself. The philosophy of sexual (never romantic) relationships, shifts like the desert winds from various degrees of abstention to "here's how; have fun!"

My son's high school had day care, fer cryin' out loud! For students with children!

Government children's prisons have generally eliminated the practical tech classes, such as wood, metal and auto shops, home economics, music and art classes (not to be confused with the nonsense pottery-making and basket-weaving baloney sometimes offered.

And then, there are the various and sundry "Zero Tolerance" rules for various, mostly politically correct actions. Zero Tolerance is more accurately termed "Zero Intelligence" on the part of school officials. They don't want to, or are unable to consider whether a given action is dangerous, or even worthy of note, or not.

Zero T for drugs includes bringing aspirin from home for a possible headache, or a cold pill to minimize coughs, sensitivity or congestion, or sometimes even prescription meds, unless you get approval from the jack-booted school nurse.

Zero T also forbids students from bringing anything more pointed than the digits 'pon their sticky little hands. Not to allow a boy to carry a jackknife in his pocket is part of the emasculation process, as well as a denial of American heritage. No self-respecting lad in the 1960's or earlier would be caught without a jackknife. Yet, somehow, we avoided killing ourselves or each other.

There are Zero T rules for speech, action, and even thought. A school in Connecticut recently announced a Zero T Policy against any form of touching of one student by another. Teachers can't touch students, although strangely, in some LA schools, students hitting teachers goes unpunished.

Face it: government children's prisons are child abuse.

The 10-year-old will learn more practical knowledge on a three-day camping trip with his parents--or a few days at work with a parent, or a few days working in and around the house--than in a full semester in a government children's prison.

Kids go to school with a great deal of enthusiasm, at first. They want to learn. It usually takes only three or four years for the children's prisons to beat that out of them.

Government children's prisons are hazardous to your child's mental health. Keep your kids out of them!

Warm regards,

Col. Hogan
Stalag California