printJames Ostrowski, prominent libertarian and tea party movement leader, has published his second book, Government Schools Are Bad for Your Kids: What You Need to Know. The book urges parents to pull their children out of the schools to escape crime, drugs, promiscuity, political correctness, indoctrination, and academic mediocrity. “This book provides the tea party movement with a strategic roadmap to restore the Jeffersonian vision of individual liberty that is the very essence of America,” he writes.
Ostrowski was led to write the book out of anger that his own kids’ parish school closed in 2006. At the present rate, private schools are doomed as a poor economy and rising tuitions squeeze out working class parents who are already forced to pay large sums for failing government schools.
The fate of the nation is tied to the future of K-12 education, Ostrowski argues: “The grand result of our experiment with government schools is a population ill-prepared to deal with the present crisis in America. . . . they are utterly unequipped to deal with the harsh new reality that the regime is failing and the nation is in the process of economic collapse.”
Another excerpt: “Government schools are truly the foundation of big government today. They supply the funding and the troops [the teachers unions] and they drum the ideology into your children, five days a week for thirteen years. Finally, they render many children less able to survive without constant support and direction from the government. Their message is that people cannot live in freedom and they fulfill that prophecy with each graduating class.”
After reviewing 50 years of failed efforts to reform the schools through the political process, Ostrowski argues that the only feasible option is direct citizen action: a massive simultaneous withdrawal of children from the schools.
James Ostrowski is a trial and appellate lawyer in Buffalo, New York. He was on presidential candidate Ron Paul’s legal staff last year. His policy studies have been published by the Hoover Institution, the Ludwig von Mises Institute and the Cato Institute. His articles have been used as course materials at numerous colleges and universities including Brown, Rutgers and Stanford. He taught a course in the Constitution at Canisius College and has been a guest lecturer at the University at Buffalo Medical School.
Presently he is an Adjunct Scholar at the Ludwig von Mises Institute and columnist for LewRockwell.com. He is editor of the libertarian blog, PoliticalClassDismissed.com and founder and president of the Jeffersonian think tank, Free New York, Inc.
He is the author of the 2004 anthology, Political Class Dismissed, dubbed the “bible of the Upstate NY tax revolt.”
The book is for sale at Amazon.
Update: Jim Ostrowski will gladly answer any of your questions about his new book. So go ahead.
Yep. Go James Ostrowski!
Here is a bit of logic for government school lovers: The free market could emulate government schools if there was a demand for crappy education, political correctness, etc. So what would you have to lose under liberty?
Remember when grandparents and great-grandparents stated that they only had an 8th grade education? Here’s the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 in Salina Kansas. I thought you might get a kick out of it. It’s five hours long. I doubt most university seniors could pass it.
I’ve seen my daughter’s (former) religious school copying the political correctness of the general decaying milieu. Upon entering the government school, she was told of the “mandatory” community service learning project,. I suggested picketing/leafleting the school as part of “community service learning”. My daughter said “Daddy, you’re going to get me in trouble” although I explained that I would back her up all the way. My dilemma was that it would be wrong for me to FORCE her to picket the school as much as them to FORCE her into service. The teacher offered alternative service and Anna asked if it was OK – so I reluctantly consented.
I’ll quote Abe about not enduring “half slave and half free” — just as private insurance cannot compete with government insurance, it’s impossible for private schools surviving intact (with integrity) against government schools. It’s not just parents forking over $ 35,000 for the former and another additional $ 16,000 / student in taxes to the latter. It’s that private schools “conform” to expected “standards of learning” that the public universities, public research-funded universities, SAT establishment, etc. indirectly impose on them. All governments should get OUT of the school “business” entirely.
Thank you for the introduction to Mr. Ostrowski. How refreshing to hear un-equivocating damnation of the most damnable institution in the nation. My only comfort, until now, has been that John Dewey was somewhere in his own circle of hell, paying eternally for what he’d done to the concept of education.
Mr. James Ostrowski is right and unfortunately Myron Pauli has a point in that the private schools have to copy the socialization policies of the public school. However, I think that a companion book to “Government schools are bad for your kids” might be the book “The Beautiful tree” a personal journey into how the worlds poorest people are educating themselves, by James Tooly. I know that the public school system will not go before the government does, so those who want education will have to do it themselves.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=the+Beautiful+tree&x=13&y=16
Jim,
I don’t see a link to the exam you were referring to.
“I’ll quote Abe about not enduring “half slave and half free” —”
Myron, I used the same reference in the book.
Government schools contradict the whole notion of a free society. One had to give in the long run and I think we need which “gave.”
Robert, Tooley is great and quoted in the book. I did not, however, have time to use all his research since I wanted a real focused book.
The website site will ultimately have all that valuable material that couldn’t fit into the book.
And great point about private schools. The government school colossus has infected the private schools in many ways and prevented a real free market from developing, a point noted in the book.
George, I think you will like the take-no-prisoners approach of the book.
Jim- Been following your work for a long time keep up the great work
What can each of us do to convince the majority of the American people to see the fallacy in Gov. control in all facets of our lives and how do we convince a majority of mothers that Gov. indoctranation & dumbing down of their kids in school is not the right thing to do for their education ?
Steve:
These two links contain an exam that was required to GRADUATE 8th grade and prior to entering high school given in Kansas in 1895. Interestingly enough, the test is real and snopes.com apparently attempts to “explain” why the test is rather irrelevant:
see http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2307857/posts and
http://www.snopes.com/language/document/1895exam.asp
Please understand that government does not only debase government but government debases the “private sector” as well. Which is why I am not sure one would want a Teddy Kennedy to ever be in trust of a national “voucher” program – it would be the end of private education entirely.
I suspect that when the teachers’ unions drive up the costs of government schooling, they drive up the costs of the private schools as well, since the private schools must compete with the government schools for teachers
Roy, thanks. No easy answer to your question.
I designed the book as a powerful argument to pull kids out of the schools. I keep hearing from folks who say, some gov. schools are okay, my kids turned out ok, went to the Ivy League or whatever.
And it occurred to me that I really don’t hit on academic performance much until chapter 7. The book really focuses on the moral vacuum in the schools. Whether or not you are religious, there is no moral compass in the schools, which I think explains some of the bizarre and aberrant behavior we are reading more and more about.
And backing up event further into Maslow’s pyramid of needs, these days parents need to be concerned about the sheer physical safety of their kids in gov. schools, even suburban ones. There were three gang rapes in October for instance.
I think that the libertarian movement has great ideas but poor strategies. Too much focus on politics and not enough on direct action.
That’s what my book is about in the end.
Government schools are garbage. And this is news? I guess we can’t disturb people while they are glued to the boob tube watching American idol or the NBA playoffs.