[kitchencabinetforum] LIBERATING THE KIDS FROM SCHOOLS

Average per-student spending in American public schools is $13,000 per year. Lindsey Burke points out the system of teacher evaluation used in many school districts relies heavily on classroom observations. It rarely counts student achievement on state tests as part of a teacher's overall evaluation. This model consists of cursory classroom visits by principals who declare nearly every teacher good, or at least competent, even in failing schools where few if any children meet basic educational standards.

Han Han, a high-school dropout born in 1982, is a Chinese professional rally driver, best-selling author, singer, creator of Party magazine, and China's most popular blogger. He has published ten novels to date, and he is also involved in music production. The Han Han story proves that schooling must be abolished. http://venitism.blogspot.com

Burke declares present schooling is an incredibly unfair system for children, who, year after year, are needlessly subjected to ineffective teachers, causing them to lose years of potential learning gains. A good teacher can get 1.5 years of learning growth; a bad teacher gets 0.5 years of learning growth. If you get a few bad teachers in a row, a student's life is altered dramatically.

Moreover Burke laments, it's incredibly unfair for teachers. The existing system, effectively blind to teacher performance, compensates teachers based on years in the classroom, not effectiveness. The best teachers aren't noticed; the worst are protected.

Dropping out of school is a smart strategy of cutting losses short! Public schools are filled with eager, fresh-faced youngsters, and prisons contain many rough-looking adults with uninviting personalities. They are both kleptocrat-run facilities where individuals are held for a specific number of years without their consent, at the mercy of their custodians.

Yet the unions, who claim to represent the interests of both students and teachers, are using Chicago children as political pawns in their quest to fortify the status quo and ensure nothing threatens their entrenched power.

For years, kleptocrats have been doing their best to further blur the distinction by giving public-school officials the same powers as the warden of San Quentin. There are many
abridgments of freedom and invasions of privacy inflicted on children. Children
are looking for a Moses to liberate them from the jails of classes, and lead
them to the promised land of real life.

The socialistic feature of public schooling that dooms it to fail is that at
every level, the system relies on compulsion instead of voluntary consent. The
curriculum is politicized to reflect the socialistic cancer of kleptocrats in
power. Standards are continually dumbed down to the least common denominator.
The brightest children are not permitted to achieve their potential, the
special-needs of individual children are neglected, and the mid-level learners
become little more than socialistic cogs in a kleptocratic machine.

Burke notes the union was offered a 10 percent pay raise over the next four years, continued step increases based not on merit but on time served in the system, more than 500 new art and P.E. teachers hired by the district, and the creation of a hiring pool where any laid-off teacher would have first dibs on any job openings within the district. They rejected that offer. The main sticking points: teacher evaluations, the length of the school day, and what to do about under-performing teachers.

Generations of dumbing-down and educational indoctrination have brainwashed hoi
polloi. Perhaps citizens will wake up quickly to their peril, perhaps not. They
must be taught the value of freedom. Many do not even know what it is, and many
don't put a value on it. Where the Founders had the advantage of the spread of
Graecoroman ideas, and a population receptive to them, we have the disadvantage
of the decline of those ideas, and a population largely indifferent to or
ignorant of them. This is quite an obstacle.

Burke muses those picketing in the streets in Chicago — the teachers, who earn on average, $76,000 per year, and after 30 years in the classroom, receive an annual payment of $77,400 for life, courtesy of the Illinois taxpayer — want to continue receiving this compensation. Moreover, they want it without the accountability that is so badly needed. http://venitism.blogspot.com

Schools dumbdown children. It's ridiculous to jail children in schools for
sixteen years! No wonder children revolt violently. Homeschooling is the
education of children at home. Homeschooling is a legal option in many places
for parents to provide their children with a learning environment as an
alternative to publicly-provided schools. Parents cite numerous reasons as
motivations to home school, including better academic test results, poor public
school environment, improved character, and objections to what is taught locally
in public school. It is also an alternative for families living in isolated
rural locations or living temporarily abroad. Homeschooling is legal in many
countries, especially Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and
the United States.

Burke says that level of compensation, in a district that faces a $1 billion deficit, certainly merits accountability. Teacher evaluations should be based in part on student performance on tests, using a value-added model that takes extraneous factors such as socioeconomic status into account. Those models should be based on growth: Has a teacher imparted a year's worth on learning in a year's time, or better yet, a year-and-a-half's worth of learning in a year's time? Other factors, such as principal and parent evaluations and observations, should also play a part. Burke asserts effective teachers should be well-compensated; ineffective teachers should find another profession.

Unschooling is a curriculum-free philosophy of homeschooling. Unschoolers
believe that the use of standard curricula and conventional grading methods, as
well as other features of traditional schooling, are counterproductive to the
goal of maximizing the education of each child. Instead, unschoolers typically
allow children to learn through their natural life experiences, including game
play, household responsibilities, and social interaction. Exploring activities
is often led by the children themselves, facilitated by the adults. Child
directed play is a key tenet of the unschooling philosophy.

We should abolish schooling, to end the ugly and inhuman business of
people-shaping and to allow and help people to shape themselves. Learning is not
the product of teaching. Learning is the product of the activity of learners.
The teacher gives explanations, not learning. If a child is left to himself, he
will think more and better. Be wary of saying or doing anything to a child that
you would not do to another adult, whose good opinion and affection you valued.

Unschooling is based upon and built around the growth of the child and the
success that is an inherent part of a self-actualizing life.
The notion of teaching people to become better thinkers is such a basic concept
that most people would assume the goal has always been a vital part of
educators' tool kits. But the concept is fairly new on the education landscape,
and it has yet to accurately address some tricky cognitive terrain. http://venitism.blogspot.com

LIB THE KIDS
By Basil Venitis

Children locked in all these classes
Dumbing down our kids
Boring teachers with glasses
Unschool now and lib the kids.

Kids are looking for a Moses
To liberate them from all these freaks
To lead them to the promised land of chosen
Unschool now and lib the kids.

Eager fresh-faced youngsters
Bored to hell and tired lids
Are in classes like gangsters
Unschool now and lib the kids.

Abolish schooling right now
Abolish all these stupid grids
Fire all these teachers anyhow
Unschool now and lib the kids.