A veteran teacher talks about her experience as a substitute teacher. Full of anecdotes, this article illustrates the state of classrooms today. She concludes that if she had school aged children, she would not place them in public schools, but would choose to homeschool them.

Our educational systems today are based on government coercion. The fact that the student body is a captive audience frees educators from any urgent need to satisfy the wishes of their clientele. Pupils cannot "vote" with their feet; parents cannot "vote" with their tax dollars.

This Facebook page offers information and support for parents opposed to Common Core who are now considering homeschooling.

John Taylor Gatto looks at alternatives to our present standard educational model.

Over two thousand years ago, Socrates told us that if someone started charging money for teaching the youth things that are well known to virtually every adult in the society, it would be fraud. Today, that fraud is well established in our country. Schooling has been taken over and adulterated by government for political purposes and enforced by laws of compulsion. It has been corrupted by teacher unions that keep well educated people out of the public schools by requiring the teachers to be not only "certified" but union members. Those requirements guarantee that only mediocre caliber people will work in the government-run schools.

Do the public school authorities feel threatened by homeschooling? Judging by their efforts to lure homeschooling families into dependence on local school districts, the answer is apparently yes. For the last several years, homeschooling has been the fastest growing educational alternative in the country. The sheer number of homeschoolers represent a distinct threat to the hegemony of the government school monopoly. Qualitatively, the academic success of homeschoolers, measured by standardized test scores and recruitment by colleges, debunk the myth that parents need to hire credentialed experts to force children to learn.

This essay was written for the Harper's Magazine forum, "School on a Hill." John Taylor Gatto discusses how public education cripples our kids and why.

Success in school--and in life--requires an active and independent mind. It would be nice if that came easily, but quite the opposite is true. And what's worse is that today, without realizing it, we are training and encouraging our children to become just the opposite--passive. As parents, we can teach our children social skills. This is not the job of our schools.

It is sometimes said, by public school supporters, that if some children are taken out of the system to go to other schools, the public schools will deteriorate. And so, the thinking goes, parents have a "duty to society" to keep their kids in the public schools, even though they have already deteriorated almost beyond recognition. How absurd that the government schools think of the children as serving the schools' or society's needs instead of the other way around. It's not the school system that needs saving, or even reforming. It's the children who need to escape from the failing government schools and be allowed to home school or attend successful private schools, without the penalty of paying twice -- once with taxes and again for tuition.

When it comes to the books we read, the neighbourhood we live in, the religion or philosophy we practise, the food we eat, the people we associate with, in fact, in most areas of our lives, we highly value our freedom of choice. Yet, when it comes to one of our most precious resources--our children--parents are not permitted to exercise this necessary freedom. State interference with and control of education is greater than it is in almost any other area of personal choice.

Just suppose for a minute that in addition to our education, government officials suddenly took it into their heads to control what we eat? Some of the big wigs figured that we common ignorant folk were not capable of making good nutritious meals, so they formed a plan and with a huge chunk of our tax dollars, built government run cafeterias (Food Distribution Centers). Sound depressing? Well, take heart, because the American people would never stand for anyone telling them what they can and cannot eat. But wait a minute....isn't this exactly the approach the government has taken with education?

Beverly K. Eakman explains how, as a teacher, she saw that public schools are places where bad ideas are legitimized. She discusses the evolution of educational policy thought and the psychologizing of the educating process. This is a fascinating look at the state of the educational system today.

Parents should take their kids out of government school because government education is not possible. "Government education" is an oxymoron. The object of teaching is the transmission of truth, which is reality. A synonym for the word “teach” is “indoctrinate.” Another good term is to “propagate” or “propagandize,” which is the teaching of any system of principles. You can see the problem with any government indoctrinating or propagandizing children. It is inherently immoral and un-American to charge the government with this responsibility.

Much of the time, public school initiatives and regulations do not affect homeschoolers. The “next big thing” in public education, called Common Core education standards, already is, however, and that influence will grow. There are three major ways this nationwide initiative affects homeschool families: curriculum, testing, and student data tracking. There are some positive things about Common Core for public school students. For homeschool families, it largely represents an intrusion into their education freedoms.

Children naturally love to learn. They want to know everything. "Daddy, why is the sky blue?" "Why can't I see my back?" "Why are those dogs doing that?" "Are we there yet?" And so on and so on. Then we send them to school. And all desire to learn is methodically destroyed. Many of today's citizens are products of the schools of the last twenty years, during which time the trend has been to adopt a more and more socialistic posture. Most teachers have never spent their lives anywhere except in classrooms, and their vision of the world is so much at odds with the real world of business and industry as to be virtually a different society.