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Separating School & State : How to Liberate America's Families
By: Sheldon Richman (1994)
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Hardback
Price: $22.95
ISBN: 0964044714 |
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Paperback
Price: $14.95
ISBN: 0964044722 |
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Description
In Separating School & State, Sheldon Richman effectively and comprehensively analyzes
the failures of public schooling in America and explains the ideas and ideology behind
the case for compulsory education. But beyond a historical interpretation and a critical
evaluation of the state of public education in America today, Mr. Richman offers a vision
of what a fully privatized educational system might look like--and in what ways it would
solve many, if not most, of the problems that parents, students, and even a sizable number
of professional educators see as the fundamental shortcomings of the present system. This
book moves the debate over education in America to a higher and more fruitful level of discussion.
Reviews
From Booklist, November 1, 1994
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, as
he prefers to call it, unschooling. Here he sounds with new vigor the alarm for an old
cause--divorcing education and political power. That cause maintains that public schools
are coercively financed and administered, regard children as property of the state,
undermine parental love and authority, and contradict the entrepreneurial spirit most
conducive to economic and social freedom. Richman reargues these positions in the light of
the present U.S. predicament, in the process providing, in two chapters worth the book's
price, historical summaries of both the proponents and the opponents of public schooling
from the late eighteenth century to the present. He concludes with criticism of such
current proposed reforms as charter schools and vouchers and with envisioning the benefits
of a free market in education and education without schools. This is educational polemics
at their most bracing.
-- Ray Olson, Copyright© 1994, American Library Association. All rights reserved.
The Tropical Homeschooler
"A dynamic new book on compulsory education."
The Michigan Review
"A truly engaging book."
John Taylor Gatto, New York Teacher of the Year, 1991, and author of Dumbing Us Down
"Mr. Richman's premise will be a troubling one for many, that state schooling doesn't work
because it can't work. He is certainly right. Separating School & State makes it clear that
even with the best of intentions, force and compulsion set processes in motion which
mutilate family life, replace education with indoctrination, and bring the myth of
Procrutes to life. The solutions proposed make such good sense, the 'official' reform crowd
should hang its head in shame."
Walter E. Williams, John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics, George Mason University,
and popular substitute host for Rush Limbaugh
If we needed more proof that government schools are in shambles and that privatization and parental choice
are the solutions, this book makes a powerful contribution. It offers both insight and compassionate solutions.
Michael Prowse, London Financial Times 3/13/1995
"Mr. Richman traces the origins of government schools. The modern concept of compulsory, state-financed schooling arose
in 18th-century Prussia. The primary goal was not to educate, but to turn children into pliant citizens who would revere
the state.... I also think Mr. Richman is right to fear that state education undermines personal responsibility....
I recommend this book."
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