"A person's freedom of learning is part of his freedom of thought, even more basic than his freedom of speech." John Holt

Seth Godin on Education Best selling author Seth Godin discusses (with filmmaker Lee Stranahan) the failure of our educational model that's built around producing factory workers. More Seth interviews at LeeStranahan.com. More videos »

The War on Kids In 95 minutes, The War on Kids exposes the many ways the public school system has failed children and our future by robbing students of all freedoms due largely to irrational fears. Children are subjected to endure prison-like security, arbitrary punishments, and pharmacological abuse through the forced prescription of dangerous drugs. Even with these measures, schools not only fail to educate students, but the drive to teach has become secondary to the need to control children. TheWarOnKids.com More videos »

Assumptions About How Children Learn by Wendy Priesnitz, from Challenging Assumptions in Education Education is Something That is Done to You Knowledge Belongs to a Cult of Experts Others Know Best What Children Should Learn Schools Provide Effective Training Schools Have a Noble Purpose

" If it would be wrong for the government to adopt an official religion, then, for the same reasons, it would be wrong for the government to adopt official education policies. The moral case for freedom of religion stands or falls with that for freedom of education. A society that champions freedom of religion but at the same time countenances state regulation of education has a great deal of explaining to do." James R. Otteson Freedom of Religion and Public Schooling

The Philosophy of Liberty Animated introduction to the philosophy of liberty from the International Society for Individual Liberty.

Training
David H. Albert
Home Education Magazine (J/F 2009)
A requirement of being a state employee and a manager is that I attend "training." I can say with some certainty that, in terms of assisting me in doing my work better, the taxpayers are not getting their money's worth.

A Teacher Questions
Compulsory Schooling
Jim Strickland
Natural Life Magazine (N/D 2008)
"Compulsory attendance laws undermine learning by creating an atmosphere of coercion, mistrust and manipulation. They do this by their very existence as the faint (or not-so faint) hum in the background of each potentially joyful moment in every classroom. We all know the best way to make anyone hate doing something is to force their compliance under threat of punishment. Learning that is meaningful, lasting and real can only take place with the consent and willing participation of the learner. One cannot teach the values of freedom and democracy using a totalitarian pedagogy. The medium is the message."

Assumption 5: "Schools Have a Noble Purpose"
Wendy Priesnitz
Excerpt from Challenging Assumptions in Education (2008, The Alternate Press)
"Scratch the surface of most public school systems and you will find something quite different than justice and democracy, in spite of good intentions. You will find an archaic institution, which defies everything we know about effective organizations and what we have learned about cognitive development. You will also find an institution that perpetuates social hierarchies, disempowers people and forces them to do things against their will – supposedly for their own good – while encouraging a destructive level of consumerism and consumption. If a democratic society is one in which people are collectively in control of their lives and the lives of their communities, then our present-day school systems are anti-democratic."

The Promise of Deschooling
Matt Hern
Social Anarchism (2001)
"It is virtually anathema in our culture, but I want to argue here that our society needs far fewer schools, not more. I believe that schools as we have conceived them in the late-20th Century are a parasite on our communities, a burden to our children and are the very essence of a hierarchical, anti-ecological culture. I further contend that dissolving the school monopoly over our kids may well hold the key to reconstructing our communities around local control and participatory democracy."

Totally Wasted
Sallie Tisdale
Salon (1998)
"High school devalues teenagers' idealism, saps their creativity and is just plain boring. So why don't students want it to change?"

Why high school must go: an interview with Leon Botstein
Robert Epstein
Phi Delta Kappan (2007
"Does our culture protect teens from themselves, or does it create the very irresponsibility we are trying to protect them from?"

Schooling: The Hidden Agenda
Daniel Quinn
"The need for schooling is bolstered by two well-entrenched pieces of cultural mythology. The first and most pernicious of these is that children will not learn unless they're compelled to--in school. It is part of the mythology of childhood itself that children hate learning and will avoid it at all costs. Of course, anyone who has had a child knows what an absurd lie this is."