Education

It’s Time to Put Public Education Behind Us

by Richard M. Ebeling February 1, 2000

There is no better indication of the failure of and increasing disappointment with public education in the United States than the growth in the number of charter schools and homeschooled students. A new study released by the federal government reported that the number of charter schools in the 27 states in ...

Freedom and the 21st Century

by Sheldon Richman January 1, 2000

Perhaps the ultimate indictment of the government's schools is that most people think year 2000 is the 2001st year and thus the start of a new century and millennium. This is not mere quibbling. Next time someone owes you five bucks, insist that he start counting from zero, as people ...

Time to Separate School and State

by Michael Prowse December 1, 1999

A few centuries ago courageous thinkers urged the separation of church and state. Religion, they argued, is a personal matter. It should not be regulated or funded by government. The principle was duly enshrined in the first amendment to the US Constitution. The country thereby avoided much civil strife and ...

The GOP and Education

by Sheldon Richman September 1, 1999

The Republicans, as the old saying goes, never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Gov. George W. Bush of Texas, the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination, demonstrated that truism when he announced his big education initiative last week. The touted forward-looking GOP leader might have struck a real ...

Educational Coercion and Aberrant Behavior

by Jacob G. Hornberger August 1, 1999

Central to all the solutions to aberrant behavior in America's public schools is that public schooling is the unquestionable "given." That is, the continued existence of public schooling itself is accepted without question and is viewed as a central element around which the solutions must revolve. But what if public ...

Seeking Explanations, Not Causes

by Sheldon Richman August 1, 1999

So much has been written about the shootings of students by students at schools that you'd think there would be nothing left to say. But there has been surprisingly little comment about the location of the shootings: government schools. Maybe this shouldn't be surprising. Government schools are nearly sacred to most people. They couldn't possibly be a — or ...

More Power for Washington

by Sheldon Richman May 1, 1999

Federalism, the protection of liberty through the dispersion of power among different levels of government, has been close to dead for decades in the United States. But now it's a little closer, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court. In a five-to-four decision, the Court ruled that since schools accept money under a ...

The Conservative Commitment to Educational Socialism

by Jacob G. Hornberger September 1, 1998

It would be difficult to find a better model of socialistic central planning than public (government) schooling. Public schooling entails a central board of elected or appointed government planners, either at a national, state, or local level. Attendance is mandated by compulsory-attendance laws. Government-approved schoolteachers, using government-approved textbooks, ...

Throw D.C.’s Government Out of School

by Sheldon Richman September 1, 1998

Everyone is breathing a sigh of relief that D.C. public schools have opened on time this year. Perhaps we shouldn't be so hasty. Are the children of the district really better off being herded back into the public school system? Despite decades of mandatory-attendance laws and the expenditure of tens of millions ...

Educational Gimmickry

by Sheldon Richman June 1, 1998

The coming controversy in the debate in education policy --actually, it's here already-will be over the matter of equal funding. In several states, the courts or legislatures have decided that it is unfair for communities with high-priced real estate to have better schools than communities with lower-priced real estate. ...

Save the Children–from Government

by Sheldon Richman May 1, 1998

The cynical political exploitation of children continues apace in Washington. The calculated abuse of children in order to accumulate power knows no limits. But since it is the government itself that is guilty of this child abuse, there is no one to stop it. President Clinton reminded us ...

Mandatory Volunteerism: Were Orwell Alive, He’d Die of Laughter

by Sheldon Richman September 1, 1997

President Clinton has hitched his wagon to one of the most abominable ideas to come down the pike in some time: community service as part of the school curriculum. Is there a single proposal packed with more fallacies? I doubt it. Where to begin? In getting ready for ...