All Posts Tagged With: "compulsory schooling"
Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher’s Journey Through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling
An annoying bumper sticker I have seen on occasion reads, “If you think education is costly, try ignorance.” That trope is meant to break down resistance to the education establishment’s desire to shop-vac in as much taxpayer money as possible. The trickery is subtle—deceive people into equating schooling with education. What the education establishment does [...]
22Sep2010 | George C. Leef | 15 comments | ContinuedGovernment Failure: E.G. West on Education
This illuminating book was designed to commemorate the achievements and to spread the ideas of the late Edwin G. West. Professor West, who lived from 1922 to 2001, did pioneering work in the economics and history of education, and his studies have been critical in refuting the pretensions of government education. Those who wish to [...]
8Jul2010 | Antony Flew | 0 comments | ContinuedR. C. Hoiles and Public Schooling
In a letter dated May 23, 1946, the libertarian publisher R. C. Hoiles wrote to Leonard E. Read, who would establish the Foundation for Economic Education later that same year. Hoiles advised Read on what he believed was the underlying cause of America’s alarming shift from individual liberty toward socialism: I am inclined to think [...]
20May2010 | Wendy McElroy | 2 comments | ContinuedGovernment Education Is Broken?
Alan Schaeffer is the president of the Alliance for the Separation of School and State. The late Marshall Fritz was the Alliance’s founder and board chairman. New York Times op-ed columnist Bob Herbert is rightfully worried about American education. He’s bothered that no one else seems worried. In his article “Clueless in America” (April 22), [...]
1Nov2008 | and Alan Schaeffer | 5 comments | ContinuedCourt Holds California’s Homeschoolers in Suspense
Anyone interested in the nearly criminal mismanagement of the nation’s government-run schools need only do research on the acronym LAUSD. In March 2006 Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraiogosa gave a speech blasting the LAUSD—Los Angeles Unified School District—for its “culture of complacency” and described the dropout problem in the district as “the new civil rights [...]
1May2008 | Steven Greenhut | 0 comments | ContinuedCalifornia’s War on Homeschoolers
Steven Greenhut is a senior editorial writer and columnist at the Orange County Register in Santa Ana, California. I’m routinely astounded by the degree to which Americans will be outraged by government abuses that take place in far-off lands, while remaining uninterested in similar abuses right here in their very midst. My newspaper, the Orange [...]
1Feb2003 | Steven Greenhut | 2 comments | ContinuedWhose Kids Are They?
David Boaz is executive vice president of the Cato Institute and author of Libertarianism: A Primer (Free Press). This article is adapted from his foreword to the new edition of The Twelve-Year Sentence: Radical Views of Compulsory Schooling edited by William F. Rickenbacker (Fox and Wilkes). Rereading The Twelve-Year Sentence a quarter-century after it was [...]
1Oct1998 | David Boaz | 1 comment | ContinuedEducational Decarceration
Daniel Hager is a senior research associate with Patrick Henry Associates in East Lansing, Michigan. When I was a teacher I reached a conclusion that put me at odds with the mystique that surrounds government schooling: the most beneficial times during the school year for many of my students were snow days. These kids were [...]
1Jul1998 | Daniel Hager | 2 comments | ContinuedGovernment Schooling: The Bureaucratization of the Mind
In April 1983, the National Commission on Excellence in Education issued its now infamous report, A Nation at Risk. The Commission found that American students were experiencing, among other things, a decline in literacy levels, a diminishing level of science and mathematics skills, and a limited knowledge in the social sciences when compared to American [...]
1May1997 | Thomas E. Lehman | 2 comments | ContinuedHomeschool Heroes
Of all the ingredients in the recipe for education, which one has the greatest potential to improve student performance? No doubt the teachers unions would put higher salaries for their members at the top of the list, to which almost every reformer might reply, Been there, done that. Teacher compensation has soared in recent decades [...]
1Feb1997 | Lawrence W. Reed | 2 comments | ContinuedWhy Laws Backfire
Ms. Manley is president of Commercial Tenant Real Estate Representation Ltd., Manhattan. Her articles have appeared in Harvard Business Review, Inc., and the Wall Street Journal. For thousands of years, laws everywhere have backfired. In ancient Babylon, Sumeria, Egypt, China, Greece, and Rome, for instance, price controls promoted not fairness but famine. During the twentieth [...]
1Aug1996 | Marisa Manley | 1 comment | Continued-
The Latest
Contraception: Insuring the Uninsurable
Update below. Controversy rages over the Obama administration’s mandate that all employers – including... Read More
The Snow Plowers’ Petition
The following might have happened in a small college town in upstate New York… In a cold and snowy... Read More
Super Bowl versus Education?
In the spirit of Super Bowl weekend I’d like to deconstruct a Facebook status update that a friend... Read More
Capitalism, Corporatism, and the Freed Market
When a front-running presidential contender tells the country that thanks to Barack Obama, “[w]e are... Read More
Creating Jobs versus Creating Value
Picking on New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is one of the largest participation sports on the Internet.... Read More
