One reason public schools get away with educational failure,
year after year, is because they are run by school officials
who passionately believe in what they are doing. As the great
English writer C. S. Lewis wrote, "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny
sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most
oppressive. Those who torment us for our own good will torment
us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own
conscience."
Public-school true believers often fall into this category -
for over a hundred years, education "experts" have been
tormenting our children with public schools, allegedly for the
children's benefit. Like all true believers, these people
believe that they know what is best for our children and
society, and seek to enforce their beliefs on parents.
From the 1850s to the 1920s, public-school activists such as
Horace Mann and John Dewey worked to create a public-school
system like the one they admired in Prussia (Germany). Mann and
Dewey considered public education a religion, with a holy
mission to mold children and society. Simply teaching children
to read, write, and do math was too commonplace a goal for
them. Mann and Dewey wanted the schools to have total control
over children's lives. This meant removing parents' influence
over their children. Mann put it this way: "We who are engaged
in the sacred cause of education are entitled to look upon all
parents as having given hostages to our cause."
Dewey also had a utopian vision for America and he wanted the
common schools to achieve his vision. To create a socialist
America, public schools had to mold generations of children
into the habit of obedience. In his Pedagogic Creed of 1897,
Dewey wrote, "Every teacher should realize he is a social
servant set apart for the maintenance of the proper social
order and the securing of the right social growth. . ."
By the early twentieth century, public schools had expanded
their functions into areas undreamed of in the 1850s. Schools
took on the role of social agencies, with nurses, social
centers, playgrounds, school showers, kindergartens, and
"Americanization" programs for immigrants. Public schools
became a major agency for social control.
Unfortunately, today's public schools are fulfilling Mann's and
Dewey's socialist vision with a vengeance. There is hardly any
area of children's lives that school authorities don't push to
control or manipulate.
Politicians and public-school apologists in many states are now
pushing programs that would make kindergarten compulsory. Public
schools also now spend billions of dollars for psychological
counseling, school-lunch programs, parent welfare-outreach
programs, special-education classes, bilingual classes,
early-childhood programs, drug and sex education classes, as
well as programs for millions of "at-risk" or "special-needs"
children.
This government-knows-best philosophy is the deepest reason why
public schools get away with educational murder and can never be
fixed. Many public-school apologists believe that your
children's education must be dictated by local governments and
school authorities.
By implication, they believe that parents are an annoyance at
best, and at worst a danger to their children's proper
education. That is why public-school true believers will never
voluntarily give up control over our children. They see
themselves as noble idealists who know what is best for our
children. That is why these "idealists" have contempt for
parent's rights.
Article Copyrighted ? 2005 by Joel Turtel.
Source: http://www.ArticlePros.com/author.php?Joel Turtel
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