Public Schools: Turning Children and Parents into Peons by James Bovard July 1, 1997 Public education is the most expensive "gift" that most Americans will ever receive. Government school systems are increasingly coercive and abusive toward both parents and students. While politicians speak grandly of the supposed benefits of public education, government courts have ensured that parents and children have no legal rights ...
The President Goes Wrong on Education by Sheldon Richman February 1, 1997 President Clinton has made education the centerpiece of his second administration. In his State of the Union address he introduced a multifaceted program that would cost $51 billion in the coming fiscal year. The program is expensive, but perhaps worse, it is wrong-headed. We need Washington to do less, not ...
The Tragedy of the Public Schools Continues by Sheldon Richman February 1, 1997 Judging from the newspapers, it's been a rough time for the public schools. Control of the Washington, D.C., schools was taken away from the elected school board by an financial oversight body set up by Congress and turned over to a new board of trustees. At the same time, ...
What’s Wrong With History Standards? by Sheldon Richman July 1, 1996 The latest fight on the nation's bloody educational battlefield is over the newly released national standards for teaching history to America's schoolchildren. The standards were drawn up by the federally funded National Center for History in the Schools at the University of California, Los Angeles. They are part of Goals 2000, ...
We Need Freedom, Not School Standards by Sheldon Richman June 1, 1996 Academic standards are all the rage. Nearly everyone thinks they are the key to improving the dismal state of American education. The nation's governors recently affirmed their intention to hold the children of their states to high standards. President Clinton supported the governors' position when he told them, ...
The Education Crisis Is Real by Sheldon Richman May 1, 1996 A recent book claims that the crisis in government school systems has been manufactured by the enemies of public education. Authors David C. Berliner and Bruce J. Biddle think the widespread concern about what goes on in the schools is based on myth. Judge for yourself. At a school in ...
Public Schools and the Assault on the Family by Sheldon Richman February 1, 1996 Imagine that you wanted to subvert the institution of the family. What would be the best way to go about it? Well, how about this?: You force parents to surrender to the state the power to make all the big decisions about their children's education. You would make the following announcement ...
A Different Vision for Schools by Rodney D. Lewis January 1, 1996 Perhaps every one of us might agree that the education of our children is a priority. For that reason, we have entrusted the state to fulfill this need by providing public schooling. But what do we want of a school? Is it to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic? Is it to teach history, philosophy, or logic? Is it to teach foreign ...
Horrors! Maybe the Schools Are Working Just Fine by Sheldon Richman July 1, 1995 Most people today are convinced that the public schools are failing. Dissatisfaction with public education is at an all-time high. But have the public schools really failed? That depends on what they were originally set up to do. In a profound sense, the public schools are not an American institution. They were ...
What’s Wrong with History Standards? by Sheldon Richman July 1, 1995 The latest fight on the nation's bloody educational battlefield is over the newly released national standards for teaching history to America's schoolchildren. The standards were drawn up by the federally funded National Center for History in the Schools at the University of California, Los Angeles. They are part of ...
Resolving the School Prayer Conflict by Sheldon Richman July 1, 1995 The controversy about school prayer threatens to aggravate the already intense dispute over the role of public schools in America. Flush from their midterm election victory, the new Republican congressional majority is talking about launching a constitutional amendment to reverse the 30-year-old Supreme Court ruling barring formal prayer in ...
Book Review: Separating School and State by Ray Olson November 1, 1994 Separating School & State: How to Liberate America’s Families by Sheldon Richman (Fairfax, Virginia: The Future of Freedom Foundation, 1994); 128 pages; $22.95 hardcover; $14.95 softcover. Yes, that's School & State in the title, not Church & State . Richman pulled his oldest child out of public school and has since seen to all his children's home schooling, or, ...