Compulsory-attendance laws force parents to send their children
to public schools. These laws presume that the politicians we
vote into office, our agents, have the right to take away
parents' liberty and inalienable rights.
Compulsory education means that in America, contrary to the
common view, we no longer live in the land of the free. Local
and state governments that claim the right to control our
children's education also claim, in effect, that they own our
children's minds and lives for twelve years. That is an
appallingly arrogant claim, especially in America.
One reason public schools get away with educational murder,
year after year, is because local governments violate parents'
liberty and parental rights with impunity. Local governments
don't own or run food stores, auto showrooms, office-supply
stores, or pre-schools and private colleges in America. Yet
they own the public schools and control 1st through 12th grade
education in America.
Do government officials have any right to dictate how we should
educate our children? To answer this question, we have to
examine what our Founding Fathers understood to be the real
function of government. In the Declaration of Independence,
Thomas Jefferson clearly stated the moral nature and purpose of
government:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with
certain inalienable rights, that among these rights are life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness-that to secure these
rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their
just powers from the consent of the governed. . . ."
The Declaration of Independence affirms that we have natural
rights as human beings to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness." It establishes the principle that we, the people,
acting individually and by free consent, created our government
only to protect and secure our natural rights as human beings.
That is government's sole legitimate function.
Look again at the phrase from the Declaration that says,
"governments are instituted among men, deriving their just
powers from the consent of the governed." The "governed" means
all the people, not just some, not a minority, and not a
majority. It means that all citizens, including parents, have
the same inalienable rights.
That phrase also means that government is our agent, not our
master. It means that we, as free human beings, voluntarily
grant limited powers to government for a specific purpose, to
protect our natural rights. It means that government should
only have those powers we specifically grant to it for that
purpose.
Yet, nowhere in the Constitution is the word "education"
mentioned. The Constitution did not give the federal government
any right or power to control how parents educate their
children. By implication, state governments do not have any
such right or power either, because such a power would violate
our fundamental liberties.
Nature and justice confirm that parents have the right to
decide who educates their children. Like parents of all
species, most human parents protect and nurture their children
and teach them the skills and knowledge they need to survive.
Parents in all cultures make teaching their children a first
priority. Since reading, writing, and arithmetic are skills
needed to prosper in a modern society, it stands to reason that
most parents will find a way to teach these skills to their
children if the means are available.
Article Copyrighted © 2005 by Joel Turtel.
Source: http://www.ArticlePros.com/author.php?Joel Turtel
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