Why Education Emancipation is the Moral Imperative of our Time

C. Bradley Thompson:

These are--to be sure--radical claims, but they are true, and the abolition of public schools is an idea whose time has come. It is time for Americans to reexamine--radically and comprehensively--the nature and purpose of their disastrously failing public school system, and to launch a new abolitionist movement, a movement to liberate tens of millions of children and their parents from this form of bondage.1

Twenty-first century Abolitionists are confronted, however, by a paradoxical fact: Most Americans recognize that something is deeply wrong with the country's elementary and secondary schools, yet they support them like no other institution. Mention the possibility of abolishing the public schools, and most people look at you as though you are crazy. And, of course, no politician would ever dare cut spending to our schools and to the "kids."

For those who take seriously the idea that our public schools are broken and need to be fixed, the most common solutions include spending more money, raising standards, reducing class size, issuing vouchers, and establishing charter schools. And yet, despite decades of such reforms, our schools only get worse.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at January 2, 2013 2:47 AM
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