Public Education

I found this article and thought it would be good food for thought. Tell me what you think.
Kerry

If a store sells inferior products or a business gives bad service, most customers will not come back and that store or business will eventually go bankrupt. If public schools sell bad education, year after year, why don't they go bankrupt? Why aren't they shut down?

The answer is government compulsion. In private schools, if the school does a bad job educating children, parents will soon take their child out of that school. If enough parents take their kids out of the school, that school will go bankrupt. A private school depends on the voluntary consent and tuition payments of its parent-customers to stay in business.

Unlike private schools, public schools are a government-controlled education system that stays in business through naked compulsion. Local governments pass laws that give school authorities near-monopoly powers over our children's education. Compulsory-attendance laws force children to go to these schools. School taxes force parents to pay for these schools. Unlike private schools, public schools rarely go out of business, no matter how bad they are, because they get their "customers" and their money by force.

Compulsion rears its ugly head in our public schools in many other ways. State teacher licensing laws prevent excellent but unlicensed educators or outside experts from teaching in the schools. Tenure laws make it almost impossible for school boards to fire incompetent or even mediocre teachers or principals.

Local governments force children to go to public schools for six to eight hours a day, five days a week for up to twelve years, even though these children might hate public school. School authorities force children to study subjects that school authorities dictate, even though children might find these subjects boring or meaningless. Public schools also force parents to accept teachers that parents might not like or think are competent.

Many public schools force children to learn math and reading with teaching methods that can cripple children's math and reading abilities. Public schools often subject children to values or sex-education classes that parents object to. The list goes on and on.

Like tax-supported prisons, public schools don't shut down because the whole system rests on a foundation of naked force. Take away compulsory-attendance laws and compulsory school taxes and it's highly likely that most public schools would "go out of business."

But parents don't have to wait for the highly unlikely event of public schools going out of business in their lifetime. Luckily, parents in America, unlike those in Germany or many other countries, have the right to homeschool their children. Parents can also take advantage of new, low-cost education options available to them right now, such as low-cost Internet private schools. I go into detail about these new education options in my book, "Public Schools, Public Menace."

Article Copyrighted © 2005 by Joel Turtel.
Joel Turtel is the author of "Public Schools, Public Menace: How Public Schools Lie to Parents & Betray Our Children", www.mykidsdeservebetter.com; lbooksusa@aol.com 718-447-7348

Writing Tip

Do your kids have writer’s block? If you think about it for a

few minutes, you might realize that your kids have a limited

amount of contact with words. You have been reading and writing

for 20, 30 40 years, but your kids have only been reading for

3, 5, 7 years. They have not had near as much time spent with

the written word as you have. Yet, we expect our kids to come

up with synonyms, sentence structure and content as well as you

do. I think we need to rethink our expectations of our children

and give them more helps when it comes to writing.

In order to help your children with “what” to write, you should

simple story, perhaps Aesop’s Fables. Read the story with your

child. After reading the story, write an outline structure so you

can do a key word outline with your child. The structure should

look something like this.

I.

1.

2.

3.

4.

If you are an outline perfectionist, you might have a heart attack

since there are no letters on my outline. The only person that will

have a hard time with no letters is YOU. Kids have no problem

using an outline that has just numbers. In fact, they will find it

easier to work with. There should a number for each sentence

in the story.

Reread the first sentence and have your child offer 3 key words

from that sentence that will help him remember what is written.

Underline or circle those words as he tells them to you. Once he

has chosen three words, write them in order on I. Then, move to

the second sentence and underline three key words for that

sentence. Write them on 1. Continue until you have three

words for each sentence. You may have less than three words,

but not more. This forces your child to learn how to make a

ecision. Besides, he does not need to remember EVERY detail

in each sentence.

After you have your outline completed, put away the original source.

Have your child use the outline and tell back to you the paragraph.

Kids have a much easier time telling verbally what they read than

writing it down. You just finished half of the writing lesson.

The next day, pull out the outline with a blank sheet of paper. You

might have your child retell the paragraph if you think he needs to

refresh himself on the content. Now, your child will write a sentence

for each line of his outline. The sentence does NOT need to be an

exact replica of the original paragraph. In fact, your child may

improve on what was originally written. When he finishes each line

of the outline, he will have a completed paragraph. If your child is

young, you might let him tell you each sentence and you write it

down for him. At this point, I would edit the paragraph for spelling

and punctuation. Notice I did not say rewrite the sentences or add

words. Let this be your child’s writing, not yours.

On the final day your child will copy his completed paragraph making

any changes for spelling and punctuation. Of course, there are

places you can see that need improving but you can teach that in

a later lesson. This is an activity to help your child see that he can

write something on his own. He doesn’t have to worry about “what”

to write any more because you will give him a source text from

which to start.

For more helps on teaching writing from source texts, see

Structure & Style, by Andrew Pudewa. The above tip comes from

unit 1 of Structure & Style. I have been using this approach to writing

for 7 years and my children do not have an aversion to writing.

Well, some days they just don’t want to pick up a pencil but overall

they don’t mind writing because they have something from

which to write.

Structure & Style gives you specific ways to improve your child’s

writing after he can write from a key word outline. IEW’s

Structure & Style offers specific structure outlines for a variety

of writings (story, reports, critiques, persuasive writing and so on).

Click here to read more about Institute for Excellence in Writing’s

Structure & Style

If you need source texts, you should try Writing Trails in

American History, Writing Trails with Great Composers or

Writing Trails with Men of Science. Each of these books provide

short paragraphs that your child can outline and rewrite. It also

includes vocabulary for each story. This is a great source for

you to use with the tip discussed above. Click here to read more

about any of these books. They are listed under Writing –

Source Text Helps.

BONUS: FREE SHIPPING on all IEW orders over $50.

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Kerry Beck, owner of Curriculum Connection, has published books

on approaches to homeschooling and other homeschooling topics.

If you want to jump-start your homeschool, go to

www.CurriculumConnection.net to receive your fre.e report on the

top dangers of sending your child to the public school