SOMETHING TO PONDER: I watched Dr. Steve Perry’s keynote address at the 2017 Oklahoma School Choice Summit & Exposition held recently at OKCCC. Why is it necessary for many of those who are seeking to support and establish the modern Education Choice movement sweeping across America to use incendiary rhetoric, liberation theology, abolitionist language, extreme characterization and indiscriminate accusation when condemning the public education system in America?
"The CONSTITUTIONAL HOME EDUCATORS ALLIANCE believes the public education system does not deserve the contempt and condemnation it has been receiving..."
I have listened online to a broad spectrum of lectures and read many of the writings of those promoting this form of school choice. There is a strong hint of an unmistakable militant tone. As if the public education system has somehow become a dangerous entity that is threatening our society. One would think the public education system is the cause for every educational ill that afflicts this nation.
However, there is no mention of a meddling and hawking Federal and state educational bureaucracy regulating public education schools to persistent distress and chronic frustration. There is no mention of a Federal government burdening the public education system with tedious and numerous non-academic mandates that seem to have no end. There is no mention of the ongoing bludgeoning of public school systems into submission with ever-present threats to remove funding should they stray from the government straight and narrow.
There is no mention of returning the public education system back to an independent nature and operation with self-government and local accountability. What I am seeing instead is the clear implication that it would be better to abandon the public education system rather than deal with the current realities of devastation to the system by an over-reaching and menacing Federal government, as well as related organizations and institutions. It is similar to the driver who throws their cigarette butt out the window but drives back later to help put out the fire he started, then complains that the fire is out of control and there is simply nothing to do but let it burn itself out.
The CONSTITUTIONAL HOME EDUCATORS ALLIANCE believes the public education system does not deserve the contempt and condemnation it has been receiving, especially in light of its accomplishments for generations of America’s school children.
