If your local high school students thought Martin Luther King had something to do with slavery or never heard of Abraham Lincoln, you’d probably think, Huh, that’s a pretty lousy school.
And if those local school students attended a school in a community in which education is required only through the 8th grade?
Would you think, My, isn’t it wonderful that the oppressive state isn’t forcing that nice community to teach anything contrary to their values?
Or maybe, How marvelous that parents retain the right to so completely control their children that those children are utterly unequipped to find their own way in the world, and are thus effectively prevented from ever leaving the community?
It’s even better when they get state support for such community-building. . . .
over in Iowa the teapartiersforjesus are holding the state education budget hostage to try and lower the requirements for homeschooling and here in Nebraska one of our state-reps suggested that instead of subsidized pre-k we could just broadcast hooked on phonics on public tv….
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2013-05-28/democracy-trouble
Hmmmm… in a “free” country, is ignorance a choice that one should be allowed to make? And should that choice be protected in the name of liberty? (Although, admittedly, the children have less of a choice in that choice, but you get the idea…)