Education

School Choice for Whom?

by Laurence M. Vance February 18, 2016

There are two kinds of “school choice.” However, both of them suffer from the same fatal flaw. The first kind of “school choice” is typified by what recently happened in my state of Florida. A Senate education panel just approved a bill “that would give parents the opportunity to pick any school in the state for their child, ...

The Libertarian Angle: The Socialism of Public Schooling

by Future of Freedom Foundation October 7, 2015

Each week, FFF president Jacob Hornberger and Richard M. Ebeling discuss the hot topics of the day. This week, Jacob and Richard talk about the disastrous consequences of compulsory government schooling. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly. Go to the podcast.

Public School Students Are the New Inmates in the American Police State

by John W. Whitehead September 17, 2015

“Every day in communities across the United States, children and adolescents spend the majority of their waking hours in schools that have increasingly come to resemble places of detention more than places of learning. From metal detectors to drug tests, from increased policing to all-seeing electronic surveillance, the public schools of the twenty-first century reflect a society ...

Children Learn More from Starfish than from Spiders

by Pauline Dixon February 1, 2015

The Rebirth of Education: Schooling Ain’t Learning by Lant Pritchett (Center for Global Development 2013), 288 pages. This book, which indicts centralized state schooling in the developing world, engages you from beginning to end. Examples from Pritchett’s own experiences in India and his use of Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom’s spiders and starfish tropes to differentiate centralized from ...

Religion and Public Education

by Laurence M. Vance November 20, 2014

There was more at stake in the recent elections than the election of candidates. All across the country there were state and county ballot initiatives relating to public education. Their main theme, of course, was more money for public-school classrooms and teachers — which, of course, also means more money for education bureaucrats to oversee the classrooms and the ...

The Libertarian Angle: Separating School & State

by Future of Freedom Foundation October 27, 2014

FFF president Jacob Hornberger and FFF vice president Sheldon Richman discuss the hot topics of the day. This week: why need to end the state's involvement in the education of our children. The Libertarian Angle airs weekly. Go to the podcast.

Children Sue in Order to Learn

by Wendy McElroy February 13, 2014

Schoolchildren in Los Angeles are currently pleading in court for the opportunity to learn. They claim bad teachers prevent them from doing so. California’s teachers’ unions are among the most powerful in the nation. California statutes are so skewed in favor of teachers’ job security that even grossly incompetent educators are almost impossible to dismiss. For instance, it can cost ...

Who Should Pay for the Education of Children?

by Laurence M. Vance September 5, 2013

Who but parents are responsible for deciding for their children the food they eat, the clothes they wear, the toys they play with, the church they attend, the company they keep, the music they listen to, and the programs they watch on television? We may not like some of the decisions that parents make for their children. Parents sometimes ...

California’s Move to Eliminate Private Schools

by Wendy McElroy August 6, 2013

California Senate Bill 131 is the latest volley in the political campaign against religious and private educational institutions, especially Catholic ones. SB 131 raises the current civil statute of limitations on damage lawsuits that are brought on the grounds of childhood sexual abuse. Under existing law, such a suit must be brought within 8 years of the child’s ...

Milking the Truancy Cow for Cash

by Wendy McElroy February 1, 2013

Diane Tran is a 17-year-old honor student who was jailed for truancy in Texas. When a tearful Tran gave an interview for a local television station, the story went viral. Her parents had recently divorced, leaving Tran to support herself and her siblings by working two jobs in addition to attending school. Fury was unleashed on the truancy court ...

Texas Inventories Children

by Wendy McElroy September 4, 2012

Officials at Northside Independent School District in San Antonio, Texas, apparently view George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four as an instruction manual rather than a cautionary tale. Over 6,000 students will be required to carry microchipped ID so that the district can track their movements in school and on school buses. Radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips will be embedded in ...

Government-Created Racism

by Wendy McElroy May 10, 2012

A destructive belief seems poised to unfold within the public-school system in the form of new policies. The Department of Education (ED) is threatening to conduct “disparate impact” inquiries on schools that have a higher punishment, expulsion, or suspension rate for black children than for whites or Asians. A racial quota system may soon be imposed on ...