Freedom From Religion: Oppressing Our Children

I will never forget a sad exchange I had with a third grade student years ago. I was helping her edit her writers journal. The picture she drew above her words was a persons face in the sky above her home. A figure I realized was God as I began to read her short paragraph.

As we talked about her story she pointed to the figure she had drawn in the clouds and asked me, "Is God real?" I froze. My time working as a para-educator in the public schools had left an indelible impression on me. I had often seen the wide eyed aversion that classroom teachers demonstrated when discussions came to close to the "God" question. I was pretty sure I was not "allowed" to talk to students about God.

So, as this young girl looked at me with searching eyes, I asked her what she thought. She became distressed and did her best to explain that she feels foolish for thinking that God is watching over her. She said, "I think that he is watching over me and that he cares about me, but I worry that if I believe in him that people will think I am foolish or I might be in trouble."

My heart ached as I looked into her distressed face. She watched me intently and the expression on her face caused me to fight back a tear. I sensed that she had written this story knowing I would edit her paper and hopeful that I would answer her question. I realized that her fear to ask about God was probably the result of both a lack of religion in her home and the way teachers at school respond with fear to discussions of God. Children perceive the fear (or with some adults in their lives, disgust) their teachers have at the mention of God and it confuses them. This student was looking to me to answer her in an open way something she had come to expect from me.

I looked at this dear sweet girl and tenderly expressed my personal belief. I told her that I believed God is there, that he watches over us all and loves us. My clear profession of faith was my way of showing her that there are adults who around her who sincerely believe in God. I told her that she should never feel foolish to believe in God or be afraid that her questions would get her in trouble. To those in authority I may have committed the ultimate crime, but the relief and peace in this young child's face reassured me that I had done the right thing!

Today I watched news report of a young girl who had her school report censored because it shared the story of her Grandfather's prayers in Vietnam. The educators in her school district believed that any identification of religious thought expressed in a public school in any way is unconstitutional. This story is just one of many I have heard over the years. I did a simple internet search and read dozens of stories illustrating this disturbing belief that our Constitutions prohibits public expressions of faith.

Christian children like a young girl, Sallie, who wrote about flying a hot air balloon to heaven and when she asked to read her story to the class as was told, "No, you are not allowed to talk about God in school." She was confused. Her parents had to explain the facts of life and tell her there are some places that God can only be in your heart in silence. Her grandmother wrote, "How dare the world take this purity of thought away from my grandchild."

A inspirational speaker who speaks to teens struggling with substance abuse writes, "It's difficult because it invokes such controversy. Some schools won't even bring me in if I talk about God. They ask me up front, "Are you a 12-stepper? Are you going to talk about religion?" They want to make sure I won't preach to their kids, or try to enforce my beliefs about religion on others. (And I don't.)"

The very mention of God or religion in an increasing number of schools has lead to "God Free" school lessons, student reports, or even student expression. Students are hardly free in an environment where their thoughts are suppressed. The constitution was designed to protect our freedom from having the coercion of a state religion not to enforce freedom from religion. Not only is such interpretation of the constitution ludicrous it sharply weakens our children's education.

The suppression of religious thought and references of God in our public schools is devastating to our pursuit of a quality education. Professor Robert Nash, College of Education and Social Services, at the University of Vermont has never been one to shy away from controversial topics. In his article Inviting God into the Classroom: A case for religion in public schools, Nash writes, "In a nutshell, we cannot be liberally educated unless we know the religious foundation of our history. America is very much rooted in the Judeo-Christian ethic — our politics, our art, our music are all tied up with religion. The same is true on an international scale, of course. We can’t understand the history of the world without some understanding of how religion has played."

The hysterical focus on religious oppression and the separation of church and state is leading our public school system to ignore the foundational principles of society for thousands of years and the concepts that connects our children to the generations of the past. God is found in every era of history and particularly woven into every step taken by pilgrims feet and pioneers. To teach history, government, and literature with no mention of God or religion and the profound impact it has had on the human history is to teach lies.

Our children know they are being lied to, they know their teachers are hiding important learning from them, and they are hurt and confused by it! They see the fear (or disgust) in their teachers demeanor when a student mentions God in class and the reaction is distressing. Those children who are taught in their homes to believe feel oppressed in this environment and they learn to sensor their thoughts and words.

I just asked my 14 year old son: "Do you feel that the discussion of God and faith has been a free uninhibited subject to talk about at your schools? Have your teachers seemed comfortable with the subject or willing to discuss it?"

His answer: NO! I can tell that those discussions, usually in social studies make my teachers uncomfortable. What is odd to me is that they seem comfortable talking about the prophet Mohammad and other religions but when it comes to Christ or Christianity they squirm and are much more uncomfortable.

Is this freedom in education, does this foster the free thought of the student, and the intelligent discussion? No! This is tyranny!

My observations are consistent with Professor Nash who writes that, "Public school teachers fear litigation, as well as administrative and parent disapproval if they raise religious or spiritual issues in the classroom." Many teachers today were raised in an education system that taught them that the constitution prohibits this type of speech in Public Schools. There is need for critical reteaching of this generation of teachers.

Nash writes, "The Supreme Court never said don’t study religion in the public schools; it said you can’t advance a particular religion in a public school. The courts recently went so far as to say it is even acceptable for teachers to have an opinion about religion and to express their own beliefs about religion as long as students are clear that this is only opinion, only the teacher’s belief, and it doesn’t follow that it has to be the students’ belief."

We must jettison this destructive agenda to eliminate God from the classrooms of our nation and rewrite the history of our past. If we are to restore the education that was responsible for the great ages of thought and literature and the ideas that enlightened generations of leaders and freedom fighters; the education that provided an unwavering moral compass to the generations who liberated the world from tyranny, we must rescue our children from the tyranny of those who push freedom from religion.

How Strong is the Link Between Instructional Time and Educational Outcomes?

The Federal Department of Education has poured billions of dollars into state grants with strings attached to increased “instructional time” among other costly reforms that reduce local control and personal freedoms. This agenda is finally hitting home. This week the state board announced that Millard Public Schools will lose $7.2 million in state aid for the instructional time allowance next year.

The allocation is given to reward districts for providing more than the state’s average amount of instructional time. I expect that federal standards and the money tied to them are what motivate our state board to fall in line with the Federal agenda and attach monetary rewards to longer school days. It is an effective tool which is evidenced by the discussions to add time to the MPS school day for the 2011-12 calendar year following the announcement.

The Federal and State Departments of Education, motivated by a belief that American students suffer from a serious achievement gap when compared to other developed countries, believe our kids are educationally disadvantaged. I wonder, why then do Millard students perform so well in several reliable markers of educational success compared to students who spend considerably more time in school? How does it happen that one of the best performing school district in our state loses funding on the basis that their students don’t spend enough time at school regardless of their performance?

President Obama believes that “for this generation of students to remain competitive with their international peers as adults, they need to start spending more time in school.” Champions of his agenda correlate standardized tests with instructional time and “are pushing further toward a 200-day school year, which would align with Thailand, Scotland and the Netherlands, and leave us a close second with Israel, South Korea and Japan, who leads with a 243-day school year.” Arne Duncan, Obama’s Education secretary said in all seriousness he thought kids should be in school “12, 13, 14 hours a day, seven days a week, 11-12 months of the year”.

While it is true that kids in many other countries have more school days, it's not true they all spend more time in school. Kids in the U.S. spend more hours in school (1,146 instructional hours per year) than do kids in the Asian countries that persistently outscore the U.S. on math and science tests - Singapore (903), Taiwan (1,050), Japan (1,005) and Hong Kong (1,013). That is despite the fact that Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong have longer school years (190 to 201 days) than does the U.S. (180 days).

A study by the National Bureau of Economic Studies compared a variety of components that produce improved educational outcomes and concluded that “there is limited evidence on the effect of classroom instructional time.” They found that “the productivity of instructional time is higher in countries that implemented school accountability measures, and in countries that give schools autonomy in hiring and firing teachers.” The correlation between “instructional time” and academic performance in this study proves that there is not a one size fits all comparison.

The “experts” in America are trying to convince us that our schools would be leading the world if our kids started school younger and were in school longer each day and throughout the year. The “experts” hold up high ranking European and Asian school systems as an example, but leave out important factors in their success that aren’t included in the overall strategy for improving education here.

A good example is number one ranked Finland, where students don’t start school until 7 years of age; they spend a third of what America spends per pupil (only $1,200); their teachers graduate in the top 10% of their collegiate class, compared to American teachers who graduate in the bottom third, and they have far less technology in the classroom. To further expose the imparity between our two systems, students in Finland are in school only two more weeks every year compared to the U.S. So if Finland can lead the world on a third of what we spend on our students then Millard can lead Nebraska without a change to our calendar.

There is plenty of room for increasing quality learning time in the existing school day. One study found that students were on task for about a third of the hours spent in school. These findings suggest that a focus on improving the delivery and quality of instruction would be a better investment than lengthening the school day. So before we spends millions more on programs that may do more harm than good we should take a closer look at what factors would have the most impact in our school district.

People talk about the days of American innovation with a wisp of nostalgia and tell us that our schools today aren’t up to the challenge; they say we can’t produce the next Henry Ford or Edwin Hubble. I wonder if these American pessimists have heard of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Eric Schmidt, or Bill Simon, some of the world’s most successful businessmen and innovators today? I wonder whether these people have ever spent time with the average small business man in America.

It’s hardly quantifiable, but a local Omaha business man shared his impressions of how America stacks up to the competition in this way, “I've tried to have several of these overseas "wonder students" work for me as a contractor and every time I find they have little or no ability to think for themselves or solve problems by themselves... our local high school interns out perform these overseas "college graduates" nearly every time.”

The national conversation promises parents that more money and time in education will translate to kids who are more competitive in the new economy. But as you can see, there are substantive arguments to be made as to the fallacy of this line of reasoning. The sound bite that is continually repeated by proponents of this progressive agenda is that American students are “falling behind” in core subjects, but to believe this you have to discount dozens of factors and believe that standardized testing is a reliable gauge of educational aptitude.

There is real doubt as to how accurate "standardized" testing results are, for example, how much fraud is in the inflated numbers of some countries. Finally, this comparison to other countries based solely on standardized tests makes no allowance for the overall success of individuals in the work force; America is still the leading economy in the world, is first in productivity and innovation, and has the highest standard of living and pay scale in the world.

There is great potential for harm in following the footsteps of European and Asian countries and any attempt to do so should in my opinion be met with skepticism. This is America...what made us great will keep us great. The fuel has always been individualism and hard work built on the bed rock of strong family-centered communities and a moral society. The greatness we're reaching for didn't come out of high-tech high schools or Ivy League halls; it comes from the solid character that is built in the halls of a happy home.

"One of the surest ways to recognize real education is by the fact that it doesn't cost very much, doesn't depend on expensive toys and gadgets. The experiences that produce it and the self awareness that propels it are nearly free." (John Taylor Gatto, "Dumbing Us Down") We intuitively know this is true and yet we are persuaded to believe that more is better! More time in school, more money, more technology, more supervision, but sometimes more is just more.

Let Our Kids Play

We need less school not more, and let me explain why. There is so much more to a healthy education that just what happens at school. What happens at home and during “free time” is essential to the cognitive, physical, social, and emotional well-being of children and youth. The studies back it up too. Children who are nurtured in strong families and have plenty of play time do better in school.

Despite the overwhelming evidence policy makers continually implement policies that erode the foundation of our society by separating children from parents and leaving less and less play time for kids to run free and “keep important appointments with themselves and with their families to learn lessons” (John Taylor Gatto, Dumbing Us Down) that can only be learned in the childhood expressions of play. When we continually lengthen the time our kids spend in school we cheat them of this critical development.

A report by the American Academy of Pediatrics underscores the importance of self-directed child play and personal free time for kids and youth and the damage that is done to our kids when they are over-scheduled in constant institutional settings. The study specifically addresses the damage done by the modern pressures of ever increasing instructional time and higher educational standards among middle class youth who have plenty of opportunity for constant activity. The study underscores that even children who attend daycare and after school programs benefit from this time in which they are free to engage in child directed play and exploration.

Our kids today are already over-scheduled and spending less and less time in creative play and family centered time. What will be the result of children spending most of their lives in an institutional environment; daycare, pre-school, school, soccer, basketball, football, dance, art, music, etc; and after a day of organized activity returning home to spend the rest of their time doing homework and indulging in media?

We don’t need experts to tell us what mother’s intuition already knows that between the seven plus hours at school and the endless after school activities followed by the isolation of vegging in front of the television, our kids are left with hardly any quality play time or family time and this is stunting their growth. This self-time is a critical piece in the healthy development of individuality. Experts agree, “Private time is absolutely essential if a private identity is going to develop…we have to give kids independent time right away because it is the key to self-knowledge” (John Taylor Gatto, Dumbing Us Down)

The role of the family is being stripped away in the name of modern progress and family centered communities are a relic of the past. Kids who could explore, build, and tumble around on the floor with dad are something you see in re-runs of "Leave it to Beaver". People talk about the days of American innovation with a wisp of nostalgia and tell us that our schools today aren’t up to the challenge; they say we can’t produce the next Henry Ford or Edwin Hubble. Didn't the great American innovators and scientist come out of the Andy Griffin days when boys ran free for hours after school ankle deep in mud catching bullfrogs at the river banks?

According to Obama's Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, those days are over! He was totally serious when he said, "The days of telling kids to go home at 2:30 and having mom there with a peanut butter sandwich, those days are gone." In all seriousness it is preference that our kids spend “12, 13, 14 hours a day, seven days a week, 11-12 months of the year.” If this is the unavoidable trend, as MPS school board president Dave Anderson said last year in response to parents concerns, then America is headed for a heartbreaking wake-up call when the fuel of American greatness runs out. Individualism and hard work built on the bed rock of strong family centered communities and a moral society has been the fuel of American greatness. Greatness that didn't come out of high tech high schools or Ivy League halls; it comes from the solid character that is built in the halls of a happy home.

If American students are "falling behind" it isn’t because they don't spend enough time in school or because there’s not enough money in education, there is already plenty of both. Our student population today suffers from chronic apathy and lack of self-motivation among other decays of character and life skills that are the result from being constantly programmed, entertained, and supervised. When you compound this with the social disintegration of the family and the culture of entitlement it is a deadly poison and the only antidote is less school and more family time.

The stresses particular to two-income or single-parent families combined with the unsupervised exposure our kids have to television, gaming, and social media has swallowed up most of the family time needed to build good character and replaced it with influences that seriously undermine the moral fabric of our society. This is a huge factor to our "failing education". Kids today are starving for nurture at home which is essential to a bright mind and a strong work ethic. Whatever the obstacles that threaten your family time, a greater focus on giving your kids free time and quality family time, will be well worth any financial sacrifice.

If we concern ourselves only with the secular schooling of our children and forget to what end it is given, all the education in the world will be utterly wasted for them. What good will it do our children to be able to provide for a family someday if they are incapable of forming solid bonds and family fidelity, if they miss key developmental benchmarks that develop critical thinking, initiative, and hard work? What good will their intellect be if their lives lack the fulfillment of happy family life.

We need to “force open the idea of “school” to include the family as the main engine of education. If we use schooling to break children away from parents…we’re going to continue to have the horror show we have right now… [Because] the “curriculum of the family” is the heart of any good life. The family is central to the strength and success of our communities and nation and we must consider how these types of decisions will impact the family unit.

Our Duty as Parents: Teachers Need Our Support!

CNN REPORTS: WHAT TEACHERS REALLY WANT TO TELL PARENTS

Article Critique by: Autumn Cook

I really like this article - it gets me thinking about an aspect of teaching I hadn't considered before. I always thought of the problem parent as the totally uninvolved; I hadn't considered the "helicopter" parent! I have a deep appreciation for the gifts of a truly good teacher, and I hate to see people who don't value that, but abuse such wonderful people.

I agree with what this author says. This organization believes that the family is the heart and driver of a child's education, and this article essentially confirms that view. When parents want the easy way out all the time - as in the cases of the stories cited by the author - their children learn to live the same way. Good parents work with their children's teachers just as this author describes - supporting the teacher in enforcement of rigorous standards, allowing discipline to take place, addressing at home with their children the issues teachers raise, and raising concerns with the occasional problem in a professional manner.

When I consider it in light of the dress and behavior standards in Millard, I wonder whether that obnoxious parent pressure comes into play for the adminstators who don't want to deal with the problem. Can't you hear some mothers whining about how "there's nothing wrong with those shorts/that shirt/that skirt!" Or, "That pep rally was just a little fun; don't be so prudish!" The easy way out! Don't hold my kid to a higher standard!

It also occurs to me that teachers and administrators in the District would benefit from recognizing who are the good parents, the ones who have "got their backs", as the author put it. They would be even more deserving of our respect (as the author of the article asked) if they worked to enforce the behavioral standards in place. I see the converse of the problem described by the teacher with the standards situation in Millard. How can a teacher be expected to teach literature if a child doesn't keep up with a summer reading list because his mother makes excuses for why he can't, the author rightly asked? How can we trust our teachers to convey to our children the importance of following laws and living up to standards, when they treat their own school codes with an attitude of, "Oh, well, that's outdated, and there are other more important things to deal with, so we're not going to worry about it"?

We want to see rigorous standards enforced both academically and behaviorally. As this group continues to grow, I hope our school officials will be glad to hear a public parent voice that's "got their backs" in the enforcement of higher standards.

What Makes the Most Difference? Teachers or Technology

Millard West Student, Danielle Kosalka, wrote an article for her school newspaper raising questions about the need for more technology in the classroom. Danielle points out that "students have become accustomed to the technology thinking for them" which is just one of the negative impacts that should concern teachers and parents. It is encouraging that even young people are seeing the possible pit falls. It is a subject that concerns parents who feel that their kids are far too dependent on technology as it is. Danielle asked, "How did students and teachers survive before computers?"

From one of those students who survived without computers, smart boards, Wi-Fi, Internet access, and countless portable Internet devices I believe that the heavy emphasis on technology in some schools is over rated. What I remember most about my education was the impact of teachers on my success. It may seem to some like an old-fashioned perspective, but I am far more concerned that our school district attract the best teachers then the latest technology.

I realize that my concern is rare and that most people are under the impression that more technology translates to better educated kids. A comment from a reader of the Millard Parent Society blog reflects that perspective. "As a high end IT person by trade, I believe that it is difficult to expose children to too much technology. This world is becoming very technologically advanced and the younger you start kids with technology the better they will be equipped for the real world. Computers and IT are just as important for children to learn today as any of the other sciences or the arts."

Another Millard resident I talked to countered this idea sarcastically, "I wonder how I learned to survive in this technologically advanced world when I had so little exposure to computers in elementary school? How am I even able to think for myself, I wonder?" He is not alone in this thought. I am 33 years old and even the IT professionals of my generation had limited exposure to computers in elementary school and despite this my generation caught on pretty fast. I seriously doubt that our kids are unable to do the same.

Without being immersed in technology at school our kids will have plenty opportunities to become tech savvy and I am concerned that too much emphasis on technology in the classroom cheats our kids out of critical cognitive development. Danielle Kosalka warned that critical writing skills are lost when students use computers for all their writing assignments and reports. Today students research online, cut and paste, and do practically no old fashioned research and sentence construction. She said that students "lose vital skills in writing, grammar, and spelling" when they depend on technology to get the job done.

In an article by Darrell Hammond, "Who Will Be the Next Steve Jobs?" He quotes the tech mogul who is "largely credited for the evolution of today's personal computer." Despite being one of the worlds top IT professionals Jobs "never advocated that kids spend the better part of their waking hours in front of one." In fact, Jobs said, "I've helped put more computers in more schools than anybody else in the world and I am absolutely convinced by no means that it is the most important thing. The most important thing is a person. A person who incites your curiosity and feeds your curiosity; and machines cannot do that in the same way that people can. The elements of discovery are all around you. You don't need a computer."

Author, Julie Ryan Evans, from CafeMom, believes that there is "real danger in letting our children rely too much on technology and not get out and learn in the dirt of the real world." She tells parents who may be concerned that their child's school "isn't as technologically advanced" that their worry may be unnecessary. In fact, "a lack of smart boards and personal computers for every student is in line with one of the most elite educational approaches". Everyday 160 Waldorf Schools across the world defy the concept that technology and education go hand in hand. There commitment is to "generating an inner enthusiasm for learning within every child... allowing motivation to arise from within and helping engender the capacity for joyful lifelong learning" through providing opportunities for students to learn through experience. Waldorf schools demonstrates how "learning with less technology may be better for students."

We need to be careful that technology is not crowding out the more important facets of education that develop a healthy curiosity. Unfortunately we are too often failing to inspire our children's curiosity, creativity, and imagination. Hammond warned that "we are denying them opportunities to tinker, discover, and explore -- in short, to play." Is public school serving our children well when someone as successful as Steve Jobs says that his public education "came close to really beating any curiosity out of me"? Certainly not!

Job's remedy, "You need a person. Computers are very reactive but they're not proactive; they are not agents. What children need is a... guide." Even's article reminds us that our resources would be better spent on basics then technology. Whether at home or in school what kids really need is that personal touch that inspires them to learn and love it. If we want our kids to get the very best education that will develop their natural abilities to think, reason, and create then we are going to have to focus our resources and ideas in the area that has the most lasting effect, teachers.

Tom Hodgkinson, writes in the Telegraph that, "Long-suffering teachers have to cope with a constantly changing educational ideology". Our teachers have enough to contend with as they struggle to inspire our children in an "era of parental paranoia, lawsuit mania and testing frenzy." The last thing they need is to be drowned in targets, testing, and technology. They are continually at the whim of the latest "educational trend" and the next technology on the horizon. "Without doubt the next Education Secretary will have a different set of brilliant ideas and the previous lot will be thrown out. If politicians and technocrats could only leave the schools alone, teachers might be able to get on with teaching."

Danielle Kosalka got it right when she said, "We need to slow down and dial back the use of technology. The overuse of technology will come back to haunt" students and I would add our society as a whole.

Guarantee Success, and Failure is Certain

The school district where I live has a lofty mission statement with a pernicious flaw that goes unseen by most educators and parents. But as mission statements translate into education policy and education policy into classroom management and discipline, education suffers a paradigm shift that has dire consequences to our children and our nation.

Years ago I served as a parent representative on my son’s middle school planning team, and after a full day of work on setting goals and objectives, I left there with serious concerns. The problem was encapsulated for me in a conversation held during a round table breakout session in which my son’s assistant principal defended a school policy call the ZAP Program (Zeros Aren’t Permitted). The policy doesn’t allow students to miss work, and requires them to score at least a 70% (or C) on all tests and quizzes. How does that work? How do you not "allow" students to get zeros or fail tests? Well, you give them endless chances with no real deadlines or consequences.

It was clear in the course of the discussion, as they pointed to the mission statement several times, that Millard public schools was determined to "guarantee" success! The school policy and classroom application was in line with the mission statement. My problem with the policy was that it removes individual choice and accountability. It leaves no room for failure or the natural consequences that accompany it. You may be thinking, what's wrong with that? Don't we want every student to succeed? Certainly we don't want failure. I understand the response but let's dig a little deeper and use reason to understand the unintended consequences of eliminating failure.

One unintended consequence of the ZAP policy that I expressed during our planning meeting was the fact that the policy rewards laziness and impedes the development of self-mastery. This is just one of the dangerous lessons that will have serious consequences for students in the future. To explain my point of view I shared with the assistant principal my personal experience. When I was a kid I knew my grades were my responsibility and if I didn’t make good grades, I met the consequences at home and in the real world. My parents did not constantly supervise my time or ensure that I completed my homework. They left it to me and when the report card came in, if the scores were low, then I suffered their consequences.

True to human nature, there was a period of time in middle school when my grades suffered as I asserted my independence and decided school wasn’t that important to me. It may surprise some people that when this attitude presents itself in young children, it does not necessarily mean it is there to stay. By high school, I got good grades and was a responsible self-motivated teen. I learned from experience and failure that opportunities are provided but not guaranteed, and that ultimately it was my responsibility to manage my time, set goals and priorities, and take advantage of opportunities that would enrich my talents and better my life.

My son’s principal responded to this example by saying that it was just a “different world” then. He said, “That kind of education is not possible today.” In education today it is “no longer the mind set to give students opportunity,” but it has become, “I’m going to make you learn it.” His words shocked me, so I repeated his words back to him. It was evident by his reaction that even he was surprised by how flawed this idea sounds when frankly spoken. But he continued to defend the policy saying, if I let a student choose for themselves whether or not they want to learn, some children will choose to throw away their educational opportunities.

He expanded this reasoning by saying that in today’s world there are just far too many children who don’t have supportive and involved parents, and these kids receive their only discipline and motivation at school. In those cases schools have a greater responsibility to guarantee students succeed in a more direct way. Instead of providing opportunities and then leaving it to students, aided by their parents, to take hold of these opportunities, schools today must “guarantee” that their students will learn.

A persuasive argument until you apply some logic to it. Let's explore the premise, because a child receives no discipline and motivation at home we should remove from the classroom those natural facets of discipline and motivation that tend to teach children the life lessons of failure and success. What are the lessons that a student learns when schools attempt to "guarantee" that child will develop character and master knowledge?

Can you guarantee that a child will develop character, knowledge, and skill? How is it done? It is done as my principal suggested, by taking the attitude, “I’m going to make you learn.” There has always been a certain segment of society that has believed you can guarantee a certain outcome through compulsory means. Whether or not that is true in practice, I believe it is a dangerous way to be teaching American children. John Adams said that, “Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom.” How can we instruct them in the principles of freedom through compulsion?

I was invited to participate in an informal round table executive session of the Judiciary Committee of the Nebraska Unicameral that dealt with problems arising from Nebraska’s harsh school attendance law, which eliminated parental discretion over school attendance in order to compel near-perfect attendance across the board. At the meeting, Nebraska Education Commissioner Roger Breed confidently touted the success of this law even though it threw thousands of families into the legal system. He was proud that the law had caused school attendance rates to sharply rise but was not bothered by the use of fear of legal action to improve attendance overall.

The attendance law sets the standard that students should miss fewer than five days of school in one year, allowing county attorney's to become involved at any point in addressing "absenteeism." He said that we as a community need to “re-evaluate how often we allow children to be absent from school.” He indicated that pressure on schools to guarantee that each child reach certain proficiency leaves no leeway in school attendance. Breed said that the resource of teacher time and attention must be heavily focused on the mission to guarantee success, which is measured by all students reaching an acceptable level of basic proficiency.

There we have it. The application to "guarantee success" results in the compulsory attainment of basic proficiency. Why? Because in order for a teacher to "make them learn," she must shift her focus from the intuitive art of teaching that inspires a love of learning to the intensive task of force feeding unmotivated students. The quality of education takes a nose dive under these types of mandates on teachers and all students suffer. In general every student is less inspired by their education to reach for excellence on their own, and instead the students learn to plug in the right inputs for proficiency. The unmotivated child doesn't become more motivated in this sterile educational environment either. Sadly, this paradigm shift has moved us into an era where children are not enabled to excel, and largely because they are no longer free manage their own success or to suffer the consequences of their own failures.

Another argument made by my son’s assistant principal in defense of the ZAP policy, essentially a “no failure” policy, was to say that these policies ensure that students learn the material at a time in their young lives when they often lack the character development necessary for success. Therefore, if schools and state governments intervene early and require learning, the student will not miss the critical material and skills, thus ensuring they have no “holes in their knowledge” when they’ve grown into their own maturity and character.

This brings to light other important questions about how children learn and how people develop character, receive knowledge, and apply skill. How do the character traits of responsibility and self-motivation develop without experiencing failure and true life consequences? Can any lasting life lessons be learned in a uninspired, controlled, sterile, forced environment? What about the “holes in their development” when they are grown?

These policies are just two examples of the philosophy of education in our generation. This philosophy dismiss our children as incapable of understanding the consequences of their choices, or unable to understand the value of education at a young age. I reject this idea! If these educators and politicians are right and our children are truly devoid of discretion and judgment in their youth? Are we to force them to learn? Thomas Jefferson taught that “if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education.”

Ensuring that every student is in their desk every day through government compulsion and that they never get a zero in the grade book, or fail a test, may achieve the result of universal C-level proficiency. But at what cost? I propose that the cost is the loss of highly motivated, self-disciplined, hard working, creative, ambitious, happy people.

If we force “learning” – which in this new philosophy means completing worksheets and projects under compulsion, turning out highly scripted writing assignments from a detailed rubric, and intensive test prep that results in successfully regurgitating information on standardized tests – we will teach children far more damaging lessons. We will teach them that they are not free. Or even worse, we will teach them that freedom is dangerous because it allows failure. We will teach them that failure is an unacceptable part of life. Therefore, freedom must also be unacceptable. This loss of freedom and failure teaches a twisted reality that confuses a nation. It removes true accountability and teaches children they are not responsible for themselves because others will guarantee their success. In this paradigm, we raise lazy, entitled children who are unsatisfied with themselves and others, are anxious and depressed under the demands of real life, and are far more likely to fail in the real world and be unable to recover from it.

My son’s principal would probably dispute this assertion and point to the excellent students at their school, their academic success and maturity. To this I would say simply that the effects of these dangerous lessons are likely to be far more prevalent among children who get their only training and discipline at school. Therefore the students for which he justifies the need for such philosophies will be the ones to suffer most because of them.

Our principal seems to believe that some portion of his students would throw away their educational opportunities if they were free to do so, and that their parents are content to let them fail. It is far more likely that some parents are simply willing to allow their children to learn in the school of life. They are comfortable with the concept that school provides opportunities, and that it is our responsibility to seize them. Granted, parents like that may be fewer today, however common they were in the past.

Educators are becoming increasingly willing to strip children and parents of freedom in education to pursue a guaranteed outcome through an equality of inputs. To do this, they must have total control over students and deny parents their natural rights to direct their child’s education and form their child’s values. I don’t believe they do these things maliciously. I believe that they have good intent. But as Milton Friedman said, “There's nothing that does so much harm as good intentions.” Good intentions that view freedom as the barrier to achievement of high aims are the most dangerous of all.

What we should be doing is preparing the young for continued learning later in life, by cultivating in them the love of learning and the skills to achieve their own ambitions. William Butler Yeats described beautifully what the purpose of education is when he said, “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” These reforms are bringing our education system to a “fill the pail” paradigm, and run a very serious risk of extinguishing much of the fire which drives creativity and the pursuit of unique individual achievement.

Abraham Lincoln wrote, “The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.” If we want to raise the next greatest generation of Americans – independent, creative, hardworking, self-reliant, disciplined, responsible, and empowered to build a strong free America – then we can no longer sit idle and allow these changes to be implemented unchallenged. We must become aware of how these “reforms” will impact our children and nation today and in the future, and fight to preserve in our public school system the qualities of education that build strong character: freedom, opportunity, and personal accountability.