Research conducted by the National Home Education Research Institute in 2001 shows homeschooled students, on average, outperformed their public school peers by 30 to 37 percentile points across all subjects, and that performance gaps impacting minorities and genders are virtually eliminated among the homeschoolers — a fairly strong rebuttal to the racist explanation for public-school […]
Back on Feb. 17 I offered another column on an American of great character and achievement — in this case, George Washington — who wound up better educated with only a few years formal schooling than our high school “scholars” of today. (In fact, John Taylor Gatto goes beyond that — asserting that locking kids […]
Last week, we again delved into John Taylor Gatto’s invaluable text “The Underground History of American Education,” citing his summary of the career of George Washington. The point of Mr. Gatto — a former New York city and state (government) Teacher of the Year — when he summarizes the careers of men like Washington, Franklin, […]
George Washington remains the greatest man of our age. But he was no genius. That our children don’t really know of Washington’s greatness is a devastating indictment of our current schools. As little as a century ago, American children memorized the Farewell Address, with its stern warning against “entangling European alliances.” Why do you suppose […]
A letter-writer recently objected that I used great libertarian Rose Wilder Lane as a “sole source” for the fact that American schooling was taken over, in the late 19th century, by statists enamored of the Prussian compulsion model, aiming to create a docile peasant class by crippling the American intellect — making reading seem real […]
Isn’t it interesting the way Iraq news gets reported in our media. A Jan. 10 Associated Press story begins: “Nine American soldiers were killed in the first two days of a new offensive to root out al-Qaida-in-Iraq fighters holed up in districts north of he capital. … “The losses came as many enemy militants fled […]
Defenders of the government compulsion schools were out in force over the holidays. “Dear Vin,” writes one earnest parent, “I dropped my ‘terrified’ six-year-old off today at Xxx Elementary government-funded School. Wait. Was she terrified? No; She hugged her first grade teacher Mrs. Y. When we went to the book fair at the school gym […]
Some teachers have written in, challenging my assertions about what currently gets taught in the government youth propaganda camps (“public schools”). “I’m surprised to learn I’ve been teaching all this propaganda promoting the merits of collectivism or whatever else Suprynowicz accuses me of,” reads a typical missive. “I’ve reviewed my curriculum and I can’t find […]