Dangers of Public Schools:

18 Ways Public Schools Can Hurt Children and Parents

  1. Public schools can cripple millions of children's ability to read by using the "whole-language" instruction method (now called "balanced reading instruction" by many public schools).
  2. Many public schools spend up to 50 percent of the school day on non-academic subjects that waste children's precious time. The rest of their time is spent on classes such as sex-education, personal safety, consumer affairs, AIDS education, save-the-environment , family life, study halls, multiculturalism, "cooperative-learning" projects, homeroom, electives, counseling, sports activities, or pep rallies (in high school).
  3. Public schools teach "new" or "fuzzy" math that can cripple children's ability to learn basic arithmetic and turn these students off math and careers like computer science that depend on a love of and competence with math.
  4. These schools force children to read dumbed-down textbooks in English, History, and many other subjects. The textbooks are often geared to the slowest learners in the class, and water-down the subject matter. Dumbed-down classes based on dumbed-down textbooks therefore waste children's precious time. This is especially true for children who are quick learners, who must endure 12 years of excruciating boredom in public-school classes.
  5. Public schools force children to study subjects they might hate, can't learn, will never use in their lives, or which bore them. For example, many public schools force students to study a foreign language or trigonometry. Children learn better when they can focus on subjects that interest them.
  6. Ben Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Edison, Mark Twain, and Abraham Lincoln all went to a formal "grammar" school for less than two years. All were home-schooled by their parents or self-taught after they learned to read. Author John Gatto, in his book "Dumbing Us Down" said that a child eager to learn can learn to read, write, and do basic arithmetic in about 100 hours. Yet our public schools keep children locked up for 12 years and can barely teach millions of kids to read.
  7. Public schools force parents to pay heavy school taxes for an inferior, often mind-numbing education for their children.
  8. Public schools are a government-controlled near-monopoly. Bad schools don't close down because compulsory taxes prop them up. Incompetent or mediocre teachers aren't fired because tenure laws protect them. That's why public schools will never improve and will always waste children's precious time.
  9. Public schools often make children vulnerable to bullies, violence, drug dealers, and values many parents dislike.
  10. Public schools pressure many parents who have bright, normal children to give their kids potentially dangerous mind-altering drugs like Ritalin to make the bored kids "behave" in class. Over four million normal but allegedly "unruly" school children take Ritalin every day. Methylphenidate (sold as Ritalin) and cocaine are both listed on "Schedule II" of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency's Controlled Substances Act (CSA).
  11. Public schools are compulsory. They therefore violate parents' natural and constitutional right to control the education of their children. Public school authorities, whose salaries we pay with our taxes, force parents to hand over their children to government employees called teachers and to schools that give an inferior education. Also, kids who are forced to be in school and hate school won't learn much.
  12. Public schools can destroy children's love of learning and self-confidence as learners. This can cripple children's ambitions and desire to go to college.
  13. Public school authorities force millions of Christian parents to hand over their children to public schools which are decidedly anti-Christian. For example, many social studies textbooks used in public schools have censored out references to such words and Christian values as 'family,' 'marriage,' 'religion,' 'fidelity,' etc. Many textbooks today refer to a "family" simply as a group of people choosing to live together.
  14. Public schools force children to witness sometimes shocking or obnoxious sexual material in so-called sex-education classes, without parents knowledge or consent.
  15. The public-school near monopoly and compulsory-attendance laws cripple parents right and ability to choose a quality, low-cost school in an education free-market that has been squashed by the public-school monopoly. Fierce competition in an education free-market would lower the cost and sharply raise the quality of education for children. The public-school monopoly therefore deprives kids of a better education.
  16. If your child hates learning because of public schools, they may not graduate from high school, might get involved with crime, or never go to college. If they get bad grades in school, they won't qualify for a college scholarship. As a result, you might have to take out a bank loan or second mortgage on your house to pay over $100,000 in college tuition for your child, if they still want to go to college.
  17. If you don't have money for your child's college tuition, even if your child graduates from high school, they may have to settle for a dead-end, low-paying job. Your grown child could then become unhappy or depressed for much of their lives, with no future to look forward to.
  18. Parents get hurt, too --- If your child ends up with a dead-end, low-paying job for the rest of their lives, this could hurt you as a parent. Your grown child at 30 years old could still be living with you because they can't find a decent job that would pay the rent in their own apartment. Your grown child could become financially dependent on you for years and keep coming back to you for money and support. When you retire, your grown child may not be able to help you financially, and you could have serious financial problems when you are not able to take care of yourself.

To ORDER "Public Schools, Public Menace"