Suggested reading and watching on education, schooling, and liberty, from diverse sources.
Featured Articles specifically address or provide particular insight into the legitimacy, history, or consequences of institutional systems of schooling, especially those that are compulsory, state-controlled, state-regulated, and/or tax-funded.
What's New | Featured Articles, Essays, and Commentary | Videos | All Articles | Suggested Books
Articles, Essays, and Commentary by Publication Date
2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | Before 2000 | Undated
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Featured Articles, Essays, and Commentary
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Education and the First Amendment
Barry Loberfeld | The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty | September 2002
Freedom of Religion and Public Schooling 
James R. Otteson | The Independent Review | Spring 2000
Dangerous Minds
David Edwards | Atlantic Free Press | December 2006
School and State: A Neat Solution to the Neatby Dispute
Daniel Hager | The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty | December 2003
Against School: How Public Education Cripples Our Kids, and Why
John Taylor Gatto | Harper's Magazine | September 2003
Here We Go Again
Anthony Gregory | LewRockwell.com | September 2005
What Has Government Done to Our Families?
Allan Carlson | Ludwig von Mises Institute | January 2004
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Undated Articles, Essays, and Columns
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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."
The Humanism Behind Homeschooling
Theresa Willingham | Undated
"As the trend towards home education has grown since it's inception in the early 1970s . . . its liberal foundations have become buried under an avalanche of conservative rhetoric that can make a real understanding of this educational phenomenon elusive at best, and create an historical facade of misinformation at worst."
Toward the Destruction of Schooling
Author Unknown | Undated
I Am Not Responsible
Russell Madden | Undated
The New Theory of Learning
Thomas L. Magliozzi | Car Talk | Undated
The thoughtless slaves become the thoughtless slavers
Greg Swann | Guerilla Schooling | Undated
169 Observations on Public Education
Maurice Levine | EducationNews.org | Undated
Top Secret America
Washington Post (2010)
"Top Secret America" is a project nearly two years in the making that describes the huge national security buildup in the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
A Dispatch from Planet Unschooling
PS Pirror (August 2010)
"People, let me tell you something. My daughter is 14. And there are times when I wished both of us lived on another planet. As in, together. As in, far, far away from everyone who thinks teens are by nature a subspecies from hell."
Kids are Capable of Much More Than We Give Them Credit For
Wendy Preisnitz, Life Learning Magazine
A melange of thoughts - sailing, life, ageism, metaphors, reality
Frank Maier
The Abuse of Children in State-Approved Care Settings
RenegadeParent.net (UK, 26 Feb 2010)
Why CRB checks do not ensure the safety of your child, and why schools are not the "safety net" that Ed Balls, the NASUWT, the NASW, the NSPCC and others would have you believe.
The Truth About Schedule 1 of the Children, Schools, and Families Bill
Dani Ahrens, Badman Review Action Group (UK, 24 Jan 2010)
Government anti-home-education claims versus reality.
Are Home Educators Worrying About Nothing?
Freedom for Children to Grow (UK, Undated, 2010)
Schedule 1 of the Children Schools and Families Bill proposes a huge number of changes to the law on home education.
Training
David H. Albert
Home Education Magazine (January/February 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 | Nov/Dec 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."
Changing the Education Paradigm
Scott McPherson | Future of Freedom Foundation | November 2005
Here We Go Again
Anthony Gregory | LewRockwell.com | September 2005
Hitler's Ghost Haunts German Parents
Alexandra Colen | The Brussels Journal | August 2005
Archipelagos of Educational Chaos 
Benjamin Marks | Journal of Libertarian Studies | Spring 2005
Libertarian Welfare
Laurence M. Vance | LewRockwell.com | February 2005
School's Out
Matt Hern | Adbusters #57 | Jan/Feb 2005
Educator Sexual Misconduct: A Synthesis of Existing Literature (2004)
U.S. Department of Education
State Schooling
Benjamin Marks | LewRockwell.com | October 2004
The Limits of Money
Frederick M. Hess | American Enterprise Institute | September 2004
The Social Contract Is Null and Void
Anthony Gregory | Strike The Root | April 2004
The Abolition of Grandparents
Gary North | LewRockwell.com | April 2004
For they know not what they do
Chris Basten | March 2004
A Wise Consistency
US Rep Ron Paul | Project Freedom | February 2004
Starting a Brush Fire for Freedom
An Interview with US Rep Ron Paul | John W. Whitehead | oldSpeak | The Rutherford Institute | February 2004
What Has Government Done to Our Families?
Allan Carlson | Ludwig von Mises Institute | January 2004
Tiny Totalitarian States
Crispin Sartwell | Creators Syndicate | January 2004
They Pry Them from Our Cold Dead Fingers
Sharon Harris | LewRockwell.com | January 2004
School and State: A Neat Solution to the Neatby Dispute
Daniel Hager | The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty | December 2003
Government School Teachers Are Overpaid
Brad Edmonds | LewRockwell.com | December 2003
» See also:
Teacher salaries higher than public thinks, expert says
The Tennessean | 06.03.03
"When salaries are computed on an hourly basis, public school teachers generally earn more than registered nurses, accountants, engineers and other middle-class workers, says Michael Podgursky, chairman of the University of Missouri's economics department."
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Preparing for the Real World
Gareth Lewis | Freedom-in-Education Newsletter | December 2003
Why Government School 'Teachers' Fail
Brad Edmonds | LewRockwell.com | November 2003
Government Educators Write Back
Brad Edmonds | LewRockwell.com | November 2003
Teachers Can't Teach Because 'Methods' Courses Are Content-Free
Linda Schrock Taylor | LewRockwell.com | November 2003
Laboratory of Really Dumb Experiments
Bob Wallace | LewRockwell.com | November 2003
Trojan Horses Go To School?
Joan E. Battey | Ether Zone | October 2003
Against School: How Public Education Cripples Our Kids, and Why
John Taylor Gatto | Harper's Magazine | September 2003
The Autism 'Spectrum'
Thomas Sowell | TownHall.com | September 2003
Disengagement and Loathing in High School
Lawrence A. Baines and Gregory Kent Stanley | educational HORIZONS | Summer 2003
"Compulsory Education": A Contradiction of Realities
Barry Loberfeld | Libertarian Party News | July 2003
State Behavior Makes the Case for Homeschooling
Harry Valentine | Le Québécois Libre | July 2003
Notes from a public school survivor
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
Bob Smith | NoForce.org | July 2003
Protect Your Children: Stand Up For What's Right
Donna M. De Poalo | EducationalFreedom.com | July 2003
Post-Traumatic School Disorder
Bob Wallace | LewRockwell.com | June 2003
Homeschools, Private Schools, and System Education
Lynn Stuter | NewsWithViews.com | May 2003
A Trust Betrayed: Update on Sexual Misconduct in Schools
Caroline Hendrie | Education Week Special Report | April/May 2003
On teaching your own and other heresies: an interview with John Holt (Interview)
Steve Trinward | Rational Review | April 2003
Vouchers May Entrench the Welfare State
Ari Armstrong | Colorado Freedom Report | March 2003
True Colors
Paula Penn-Nabrit | Teacher Magazine | March 2003
Living the outlaw life: An education in freedom
Claire Wolfe | Backwoods Home Magazine | March 2003
Why Nerds are Unpopular
Paul Graham | PaulGraham.com | February 2003
California's War on Homeschoolers
Steven Greenhut | Foundation for Economic Education | February 2003
De-minding Our Young
Fred Reed | FredOnEverything.com | February 2003
Another Central Plan Fails
Jeffrey Tucker | Ludwig von Mises Institute | January 2003
So You Say You Want A Resolution
Cathy D. Henderson | EducationalFreedom.com | January 2003
Should Government Run Churches ... or Schools?
Scott McPherson | The Future of Freedom Foundation | December 2002
Excuses! Excuses! Excuses!
Linda Schrock Taylor | LewRockwell.com | December 2002
Government Cradle Robbing
Timothy D. Terrell | Ludwig von Mises Institute | November 2002
Education As Life
Donna M. De Poalo | EducationalFreedom.com | October 2002
Education and the First Amendment
Barry Loberfeld | The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty | September 2002
The 'Boy Parent Dilemma'
Glenn Sacks | GlennSacks.com | September 2002
The Problem Is the Schools
Sheldon Richman | The Future of Freedom Foundation | August 2002
Taking the Voucher Bait
Warren Mass | The New American | August 2002
Leave it all Behind
Crispin Sartwell | Los Angeles Times | June 2002
The Blueberry Story: A New Urban Legend
Joseph L. Bast | The Heartland Institute | March 2002
Compulsory Government Education: Origins and Solutions
Rick Gee | Strike-The -Root | January 2002
There's No Such Thing as Public Education
Crispin Sartwell | Los Angeles Times | January 2002
"Education" that Eschews Reason Breeds Mindlessness
Wayne Dunn | The Rational View | 2001
Homeschoolers: Who ARE We?
Cathy Henderson | EducationalFreedom.com | 2001
School's Out
Daniel H. Pink | Reason Online | October 2001
Vouchers and Visions of Freedom: A Fictional History
Richard M. Ebeling | The Future of Freedom Foundation | September 2001
Freedom of Education: A Civil Liberty
Barry Loberfeld | The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty | August 2001
Masters of Their Own Souls: John Taylor Gatto (Interview)
George A. Clowes | School Reform News | Heartland Institute | August 2001
The National Everything Association
(PDF file - opens in new window)
Mike Antonucci | Education Intelligence Agency | August 2001
Toward an Educational Renaissance
Chris Cardiff | The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty | May 2001
The Pledge versus the Oath
Jim Peron | The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty | May 2001
Kids and Drugs
Crispin Sartwell | Baltimore Sun | March 2001
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."
Public Education versus Liberty: The Pedigree of an Idea
Michiel Visser | Acton Institute | 2001
Mandatory Schooling
James Pearlstein | Thomas S. Szasz, M.D. Cybercenter for Liberty and Responsibility | 2000
Funding for Private Schools in England and the Netherlands: Can the Piper Call the Tune?
Geoffrey Walford | National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, Teachers College, Columbia University | 2000
How Well Are American Students Learning?
The Brown Center Report on American Education: 2000
The Brookings Institution | 2000
Freedom of Religion and Public Schooling
James R. Otteson | The Independent Review | 2000
Thought Reform 101 : The Orwellian implications of today's college orientation
Alan Charles Kors | Reason Online | 2000
What's Really Wrong With Public Schools?
David H. Chilton | Studies in Reformed Theology | 2000
Government Restaurants
Jim Rongstad | 2000
Unschooling as a Political Activity
Camy Matthay | Shikshantar: The Peoples' Institute for Rethinking Education and Development | 2000
Enterprising Education: Doing Away with the Public School System
Andrew Young and Walter Block | Journal of Value-Based Management | 12:3:195-207 | October 1999
Also available through Ludwig von Mises Institute
Genuine Multiculturalism
Karl Bunday | Learn in Freedom! | 1999
The Central Fallacy of Public Schooling
Daniel Hager | Foundation for Economic Education | 1999
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?"
The Conservative Commitment to Educational Socialism
Jacob G. Hornberger | The Future of Freedom Foundation | 1998
Integration Where It Counts: A Study of Racial Integration in Public and Private School Lunchrooms
Jay P. Greene & Nicole Mellow | University of Texas at Austin | 1998
The Seduction of Homeschooling Families
Chris Cardiff | The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty | 1998
Before the Public Schools
Gary Benoit | The New American | 1997
Government Schooling: The Bureaucratization of the Mind
Thomas E. Lehman | The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty | 1997
What If Supermarkets Were Run Like Schools?
Mark Harrison | SchoolChoices.org | 1997
The Spread of Education Before Compulsion: Britain and America in the Nineteenth Century
Edwin G. West | The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty | 1996
It Takes a Bureaucracy
Gwen J. Broude | Reason Magazine | 1996
Who Got It Right? What Proponents and Opponents of the Creation of the Department of Education Promised & Predicted
John E. Berthoud | Thomas B. Fordham Foundation | 1996
Schooling: Liberation or Mind Control?
Richard Heinberg | New Dawn Magazine | 1995
Education in a Free Nation: Children Can Learn Without State-Forced Schooling
Liz Hanson | Formulations | 1995
Non-Government Schools: Education for Democratic Citizenship
Joel Wysong, Cornell University
Philosophy of Education Yearbook, 1994
The Weak Case for Public Schooling
David Friedman | 1993
Who Controls the Children?
Carl Watner | The Voluntaryist | 1992
The Manufacture of Subjection: A Critique of Compulsory State Education
Stefan Blankertz | Libertarian Alliance | 1992
Only Freedom of Education Can Solve America's Bureaucratic Crisis of Education
Jack D. Douglas | Cato Institute | 1991
Why Americans Won't Choose Freedom
Jacob G. Hornberger | Future of Freedom Foundation | 1991
When Education Becomes Abuse: A Different Look at the Mental Health of Children
Raymond S. Moore & Dorothy Moore | Journal of School Health | 1986
The Dilemmas of Public Education
Clarence B. Carson | The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty | 1983
John Holt: Common Objections to Homeschooling
The Natural Child Project
Excerpt from Teach Your Own: A Hopeful Path for Education (1981)
