Why Parents Are Home Schooling and Yanking Their Kids Out of Government Run Schools
Here is a perfect example of why I will never send my child to a government run school. This example is not an anomoly. Not only are our children not learning how to read and write and think critically (Time Magazine just did a cover story on how one third of high school students don’t graduate.) But they are also increasingly vulnerable to being raped, abused, and molested. As I have often said, government can’t run the DMV and Post Office efficiently, and they should not be in the teaching business. If only the Democrats and their number one donor/constituency the NEA (teachers’ union) would stop obstructing school choice, accountability, merit based pay, vouchers and other free market based competitive reforms. As long as we have a virtual monopoly on education our kids will continue to under-achieve especially the least advantaged students (blacks and hispanics). Government run education is essentially a socialist system which, like all government run monopolies/monopsonies always result in contrived scarcities, inferior quality, and rationing. But the fact that parents can’t trust teachers to protect the children to me is something Americans should not tolerate. Again, I will say, this is not an isolated incident.
Teacher charged with raping student 28 times
Police: Rachel Holt engaged in intercourse with 13-year-oldThursday, April 6, 2006 Posted: 2000 GMT (0400 HKT)
Schoolteacher Rachel Holt is charged with 28 counts of raping a 13-year-old student.RELATED
LaFave has charges dropped
(CNN) — A Delaware schoolteacher was charged Tuesday with 28 counts of raping a minor after she allegedly engaged in a weeklong sexual relationship with a 13-year-old student, police said.Rachel L. Holt, a 34-year-old science teacher at Claymont Elementary School, faces additional charges that she allowed a 12-year-old friend of the victim to watch them have sex at her home, and that she gave both boys beer, New Castle County acting Police Chief Scott McLaren said.
Robert Ziegler, a spokesman for the Brandywine School District, confirmed that two boys were allegedly involved in the incident.
March 19th, 2007 at 8:42 am
That is a particularly horrible story. Do you really think that is emblematic of the public school system? Not that all public school systems are great, or even good– they vary, but the tactic of taking the single worst example to indict an entire system is suspect. I’m sure things like that never happen at a private school or to home-schooled children.
If that’s the only reason to keep your children out of public schools, I’m sure I can find a restaurant drive-by shooting that will have you serving them their meals in their bedrooms until they are 25.
By the way, will you bring in a tutor to teach your children to spell “anomaly?” (sorry, couldn’t resist)
March 19th, 2007 at 10:06 am
Well said, but we need to include children that have a learning disability,(no matter what race or where they come from. I just left another ARC meeting, very upset. But to file due process in not going to happen because the frankfort people always send you back to the same old people. Please I beg each parent to stand up and support (Parents Choice) Let me tell you my son is going to middle school next year, and does not have a clue how to count money or do multipilcation. But it seems like nobocy cares, they say carry a chart or a calculator. Well they is not life. Lets quit paying unqualified teachers, or give the parent the right to choose what school and let them take the public school funding with them to pay for a better school.
March 20th, 2007 at 8:56 am
Doug H,
Thanks as usual for your “two cents” and thoughtful questions.
To your question: “Do you really think that is emblematic of the public school system? Not that all public school systems are great, or even good– they vary, but the tactic of taking the single worst example to indict an entire system is suspect. I’m sure things like that never happen at a private school or to home-schooled children.”
I never said that kids are not abused by homeschooling or at private schools.But perhaps you can set me straight and provide those stats. What I did say was that this incident was not an anomoly in public schools. Let me provide a few examples to demonstrate how endemic this problem is.
In New York alone in 2005 there were 180 claims of sexual abuse by NY City public city school teachers all before May 2005. (if you extrapolate that on an annual basis that is about 700 cases per year). I would not characterize that as an anomoly. And that is just one city in America.
A survey from the American Assocaition of University Women Educational Foundation found that between 1991 and 2000 roughly 290,000 students were subjected to physical sexual abuse by teachers or other personel.I wouldn’t characterize that as “isolated” or anomolous. Would you?
Statistics professor Carol Shakeshaft who analyzed the data in her report to the US Dept of Education says that about one in every ten American children has been sexually aboused in some way at school. Again, if it were 1 in 10,000 I’d say that it might be an “anomoly.” But when there is a statistically significant 10% chance that your kid will be sexually abused in a govt run public school, I’d say that we have a serious problem on our hands. There is a reason that significant majorities of the Congressional Black and Hispanic caucuses send their kids to private schools. They know they will receive a superior education and be safer.
As far as being the “worst example” of sexual ,I never said it was. There are thousands of stories just like it. But any time that a school teacher has sex with your child is bad. Whether one incident qualifies as “worse” than another is not really pertinent to my central argument. It’s really tough to rank cases of sexual abuse and I won’t attempt to. Let’s just say they all destroy the lives of the victim children.
When you couple the fact that that sexual abuse of public school children by teachers is a huge problem and not an anomoly as I said, with the fact that public school teachers (who were education majors) score the lowest on SATs and ACTs and have an average of about a C+, it becomes very clear to me that we have a major problem in our govt run educational system which is why it needs to be drastically changed.
Here in Mass, on a recent teaching test, 59% of candidates for teaching positions failed a basic skills test geared to eigth graders. One third could not even pass the basic skills section.Kevin and I discussed that last winter on our radio show.
I totally agree with Hoover Institution Fellow, Dr. Thomas Sowell (whose endorsement of my book I was fortunate enough to receive) when he said in a 1999 interview in response to the question “what change in America would give him the greatest satisfaction if he could snap his fingers and make it happen,” he answered, “Do away with schools of education and departments of education, close them down.”
I agree that the govt run school system must be shut down. Give the authority and money back to the parents to choose the best school for their child. The fact that one third of children in public schools are not graduating (the Time Magazine Cover Story a few months back I pointed out in the original post) coupled with the fact that they are being sexually abused at an alarming rate should be proof enough that the system has failed and that we need to institute a new one which conservatives such as Milton Freidman, Thomas Sowell, Elizabeth Hoxley and other have been advocating for a long time. The problem is that the NEA and Democrat Party impede and obstruct every free market school choice reform and initiative that has worked in an effort to preserve their monopolistic control over the govt run system.
But when a critical mass of parents say “enough” and demand more from schools, I believe that they will get the type of change they are looking for.
Gregg
March 20th, 2007 at 9:41 am
Sounds like you are advocating a “cut and run” strategy for public– excuse me, “government run” schools, rather than looking at ways to improve the system (would you vote for a “teacher surge?”). Don’t cowards cut and run?
I would like to see the stats on private and home school abuse as well– looking and asking around. I’ll give myself bonus points if I can find a researcher on private schools who has also endorsed your book.
March 20th, 2007 at 10:22 am
Let me tell you the worse kind of abuse that is going on in our goverment run shcools. It is Bible reading and Prayer has been outlawed by the highest court in the land. If Bibles and prayers are not welcome God is not welcome. If God is not welcome Christians are not welcome. All public shcools in the United States abuse and rape our childrens minds with sex education. They teach them from Kindergarden on through the twelth grade that homosexual behavior is just an alternative lifestyle. I decided that when I was a child that if I ever had children I would not send them to a Government school. I was taught in 1979 in whitfield coutny Georgia that homosexuality is natural and normal. They called it an alternative lifestyle. Me and my wife have always homeschooled our children sent them to a private school at great expense. I would rather have to drive a beat up old car and take the money that we could have used to by a new one and send my children to school instead. Me and my wife have sacrificed alot to send them to christian school. If the cost was 10 times more we would still make that decision. Since God has been kicked out of school murder rape drugs and homosexuality has taken his place.
With God gone from the public schools anything goes. signed Forrest
March 20th, 2007 at 11:29 am
This is just another indication of how out-to-lunch the American people are on this issue. Sure this may be the “worst case” of public skool problems, but the list goes on and on. A child being raped in school isn’t a rare thing. Here’s a link for a list of Teacher/Student “problems” in todays public skools.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53859
Children getting raped is obviously bad, but it’s not the main problem with the schools. How about the fact that the students being turned out are I-D-I-O-T-S. Despite the fact that we throw more money at the skools than ever, the results are worse than ever. The problem with todays skools is the lack of PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. If the kid stinks at math, it’s the teacher’s fault. If the Johnny can’t concentrate, let’s put him on a prescription drug. If mandy is depressed, let’s give her A’s to keep her happy. How about the old fashion concept of FAILURE until you get it right. We wonder why other countries are beating us in the markets and technological advances, while at home we’re turning our children into a bunch of vegetables. As long as they “feel good” everything will be alright. Too bad it doesn’t work out that way in the real world. The world is full of pain, struggle, and losing. Unless America’s youth get that through their heads they’ll never know how to succeed and accomplish anything in life.
March 20th, 2007 at 11:56 am
Considering the NEA’s opposition to abstinence programs in schools [and the Kinsey Institute based "promiscuity programs" that they promote] It’s not hard to understand why cases like these are occuring so frequently.
March 20th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
I’m sorry, but if that were my child? Fistacuffs fer sure!
I have managed to talk my sister into homeschooling my nephew. THANK GOD!
This ‘female’ needs to go prison for a very, very, very, very long time.
March 20th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
Yes very good Doug you are cathcing on. I am advocating ending the govt run public school system for the very reasons I cited. And yes I have advocated serious reforms which have worked every time they have been enacted such as vouchers/competitive charter schools, merit pay for teachers, state testing for teachers, de-funding the dept of education, ending mandatd hoosexual “education” classes etc…So you can make your little joke about “cutting and running” from the failed govt run school system that is failing to teach and protect our children, but if it were your kid who was illiterate or was sexually abused you would not be treating the issue in such a light-hearted manner. Also, funny how you never responded to the statistics I provided demonstrating that the case I cited and blogged about was not “isolated.”
Gregg
March 21st, 2007 at 9:33 am
Cutting and running — That wasn’t a joke, it was an analogy. And no, I don’t take sexual abuse light-heartedly, but I do take all things in context where I can. You are making your own context to fit your narrow view.
As for stats they’re a great crutch, once I find relevant stats as you always demand I will be sure to manipulate and spin them to fit with this debate.
March 21st, 2007 at 11:13 am
The main variable here that I don’t see discussed is parental involvement. People who care about their children’s education tend to help make any situation better. I’ve seen school systems spend more money than my local system but have lower results (test scores, dropout rates, etc.) mostly because the parents aren’t as active.
This makes the private school question more interesting, because by default a person sending their kids to private school has a vested interest in education, making them more likely to have an active role.
I’m not suggesting that abuse can’t happen if parents are involved, but if they are active and involved then it give them a better chance of seeing “red flags” when they come up.
The public school system is an asset to society in that it offers opportunity to everyone. Do we really want to go back to a world where only the wealthy got a good education? You can argue that we’re there now, but if there are problems with the system we should be working to fix those problems, not kill the whole system.
March 28th, 2007 at 6:22 am
Government schools?… Are you kidding me…honestly, the fact that you are talking about public schools, an institution you, I can guess, have never actually stepped foot in, in decades, and, as a result, know nothing about at all-…the first public school in the United States was initiated before we had a president, so if you want to live in a country that doesn’t offer a free education, you should move to a country that offers education only to those who have the gated homes to provide that-WOW!
Champ
July 15th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Prozac….
Prozac….