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July
27, '01
Vol. 1, No. 24
=================================
T H E S C H O O L L I B E R A T
OR
=================================
* The Alliance's Mission * Zero Tolerance in Nevada *
* Bumper Stickers * Let's Do It Right *
--> Earlier this week, The School Liberator caused some controversy by
including Charlie Reese's article "Public Schools Are beyond Reform
and Redemption." The controversy surrounded Reese's statement against
open immigration.
--> The Alliance's mission is to inform Americans how education can be
improved for all by freeing schools
from politics. We included Reese's article last time because he endorsed
our mission and presented some articulate arguments for separation. Also,
we wanted to show you that yet another nationally syndicated columnist has
come over to our side.
--> The Alliance, however, does not take a position on political issues
outside our mission statement. We were not endorsing Reese's
anti-immigration stance.
--> In today's edition, we've included another of Reese's editorials.
In it you will find that he favors immunity for teachers and testing for
tracking students as reform measures. The Alliance does not advocate these
reforms. The crux of the difference between Reese and the Alliance is that
Reese believes these false reforms would work but there isn't the public
will to enact them. The Alliance
believes that the only reform that will work is separating school and
state.
--> We will continue to pass along interesting articles on education
reform, but we will include disclaimers where
appropriate. We hope we have cleared up any confusion.
--> Zero Tolerance Follies. In Las Vegas, a boy who made an intemperate
statement to a girl in a phone conversation at home has been not only
expelled but labeled potentially violent.
--> From the article: "It was March 30, about 11:30 p.m., when
Joseph K. got the phone call that changed his young life.
Two girls from Chaparral High School, one of them an acquaintance, called
to ask him out on a date, of sorts: Would he escort them to the 7-Eleven
to hang out? It didn't take him long to answer: 'I didn't want to hang
out,' he recalls, 'It was late.' The girls then put him on hold. He
waited patiently. Some 15 minutes later, they got back on the phone, and
Joseph K. was a little steamed.
"'I said, 'It's people like you who get on the Columbine lists,'' he
recalls.. He had no idea that the school-shooting reference would stir
police to action."
http://www.lasvegasweekly.com/2001/dep
artments/2001_06_28/upfront_1.html
--> On the lighter side, a little while ago, Alliance supporter Rob
Moody wrote an excellent piece on those obnoxious bumper stickers that say
"My child is an honor student at such and such school."
--> Our favorite snappy come back of his: "I spend more time
deciding what I'm going to watch on TV for one night than I spend on
deciding how my children will be educated for 12 years." Take in the
rest of his insight and wit at
http://www.lewrockwell.com/moody/mood
y10.html
--> Speaking of bumper stickers, did you know you can get one from the
Alliance? It reads "If you call them "government schools"
call 1-888-338-1776." We are selling them for $2 each, 10 for $15.
Call Morgen to order.
================ ANNOUNCEMENTS =================
--> We are approaching our deadline but we haven't yet reached our goal
$8,500 for our webpage upgrade. Only five days left. We still need two
$500 gifts, and a whole bunch of gifts from $25 to $250.
Larger donations are, of course, still welcome. Please make your
commitment of support by July 31 so that we can
secure Geoff Braun's services for the rest of the work. Email Morgen with
your pledge mailto:Morgen@psnw.com
or call 559/292-1776.
Take a look at our new homepage http://www.sepschool.org
and show us how much you like it with your donation. As always, we thank
you for your generous support.
--> SepCon2001 is set for Nov. 16-18 in Arlington VA, the weekend
before Thanksgiving, at the Hilton DoubleTree
Hotel in Arlington VA. We have a SepCon2001 page listing the speakers and
topics. Registration information, too. Go to
http://www.sepschool.org/sepcon.html
Mark your calendar now.
======= SPECIAL OFFER ==========
Are you still leaning toward the notion that public schools simply need
some tinkering on the margin? May we suggest
listening to "Can Public Schooling Be Repaired," a panel
discussion featuring Don Boudreaux, Ron Brandt, Cathy Duffy,
Charlotte Iserbyt, R. Franz Jordan, Rev. E. Ray Moore and Jim Woodall. Get
this 60 minute audiotape as a School Liberator special--$1 plus $3.50
shipping--a full $7 discount. Call Morgen at 559/292-1776 to order.
===============================
Let's Reform Schools and Let's Do It Right
By
Charley Reese
Lest someone think I have no ideas about solutions to problems, I'll tell
you the first steps necessary to reform government education. As soon as I
do, you will
quickly realize that there is no political will to do any of them. Ergo,
government education cannot be reformed and must be scrapped.
Step one to real reform is to repeal compulsory attendance laws. Don't
worry. The kids will show up. In the first
place, there are no farms where their labor is needed anymore. In the
second place, the worst parents view schools as free baby-sitters or a
brat-watching service. They'll make sure their little monsters show up in
the classroom.
The virtue of repealing compulsory attendance, however, is that it gives
the school administrators and classroom
teachers leverage they have lost. With no compulsory attendance, they
could kick disruptive kids out of school permanently.
They also could explain to parents that, while this service is available,
it is conditional. And the conditions are
that parents must civilize their little savages -- teach them manners and
personal hygiene -- before they will be
accepted for attendance. And should the students fail either to meet
behavior or academic standards, back home they go.
The second necessary step is to repeal tenure laws. One school
administrator put it well when he said firing a tenured teacher is not a
task, it's a career. I know
personally that it took one school more than five years to fire a teacher
everyone agreed from the gitgo was an alcoholic and appeared in all his
classes sloshed.
Paying a bad teacher more money will not make that person a better
teacher. In fact, paying a good teacher more money will not make that
person a better teacher.
Good teachers are good because of their character and talents, not because
of their paychecks. The noxious and false notion that you can acquire
quality with money should be forever discarded from our thinking.
What rewarding good teachers can do is encourage them to stay in the
profession, but you need more than pay to do that. You have to make sure
that no student can insult, much less assault, a teacher, which means
school administrations must back up their teachers without question.
To help principals develop some backbone, state legislatures should pass
laws or amend their constitutions to grant school districts and all of
their employees sovereign immunity from lawsuits.
Don't kid yourself. It is fear of litigation that has corrupted many of
our institutions. So, let's review for a moment. We're going to repeal
compulsory
attendance laws; we're going to abolish tenure; we're going to set strict
behavior and performance standards for all students and toss 'em when they
fail to meet them; we're going to back the classroom teacher 100 percent;
and we're going to grant school districts
immunity from lawsuits to keep the ambulance chasers off the campus.
The next step is to destroy the false god of egalitarianism once and for
all. Students are not equal. They vary in IQ, a crucial factor in academic
performance.
To expect teachers to wave magic wands and produce uniform results is a
fool's errand and cruel example of child abuse. Yet today's politicians
and editorial
writers seem to be fixated on uniform performance.
The students need to be tested and assessed early to determine their IQ
and their aptitudes. Students with below-average IQ's are not college
material and should be directed into vocational and commercial training
courses. Students with talents for art and music should be given that kind
of an education.
Of course, you can't provide this kind of varied education in the
monstrous concrete institutions that stupid school boards keep building.
Finally, Congress has to repeal the students-with-disabilities act.
Students with serious mental or emotional problems should be segregated,
taught in a special facility by specialists. Putting these children into
the normal classrooms has probably done more to destroy public education
than anything else.
These are only preliminary and necessary first steps. The curricula need
to be seriously reformed and bland or ideological textbooks burned in one
big pile.
The main point, however, is the system is a political system and there is
not the political will to make these changes.
That's why I say abandon government education. It cannot, or perhaps I
should say, will not ever be reformed.
Home-school your children, and if you can't do that put them in a good
private school. No public-school system, which
employs armed guards, barbed wire fences and metal detectors can be called
even an acceptable system, much less successful.
--------------
Mr. Reese is a syndicated columnist who recently announced his retirement
from the Orlando Sentinel. Reach him at 407/420-5315 or creese@orlandosentinel.com. This editorial is included for
educational purposes. The Alliance does not necessarily endorse Mr.
Reese's views.
===============================
SIGN THE PROCLAMATION or get a family member to:
"I proclaim publicly that I favor ending government involvement in
education."
http://www.sepschool.org/Proclamation
WANT TO SOUND OFF? Discuss education issues with fellow articulate School
Liberators. Go to
http://www.sepschool.org/Other/eGroup
sDiscussion.htm
COMMENTS OR QUESTIONS? Send us your message at mailto:ccuthbert@fix.net
WORD OF MOUTH is the most efficient means of marketing the Separator
philosophy. Please forward this newsletter to your family, friends and
associates.
===============================
FINAL THOUGHT
This letter appeared in the Wall Street Journal, June 12, 2001.
Dear Sir:
Your letters (June 6) "What's the True Worth of Achievement
Tests" reminds me that as of l969 just over one-half of the Ph.Ds in
America had graduated
in the bottom half of their high-school class while, in all the history of
the human race, only three great thinkers--Land, Chomsky, and Oppenheimer--have
done
well in school.
Meanwhile, Harvard studies showed that the B students end up achieving
more than the A students while the Cs
often do the best of all.
In addition, based on a survey I've made of friends and teachers, it's
safe to assume that there are no adults
anywhere in the U.S. who would let the government force them into a school
building for even three hours a week,
make them study some obscure subject mandated from on high, test them on
the art of transient storage, and then make their future careers dependent
on passing the course.
But schools and colleges could become EDUCATIONAL institutions were we to
abolish testing and instead stimulate, demonstrate, and encourage kids to
acquire those all-important basic skills as well as to keep on learning
about the world with the enthusiasm and the efficiency of any preschool
child.
Yours, Robert E. Kay, MD
robertekaymd@mymailstation.com
===============================
THE SCHOOL LIBERATOR is a FREE service of The Alliance for the Separation
of School & State, 4578 N First #310,
Fresno CA 93726 (559) 292-1776. We are a non-profit, grass roots
educational organization dedicated to informing
people worldwide how education can be improved for all-not only the
poor-by liberating schools from politics. For more
information go to
http://www.sepschool.org
Publisher: Marshall Fritz
Editor: Cathy Cuthbert
Copyright 2001, The Alliance for the Separation of School & State,
Inc. All rights reserved.
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