Alliance e-Notes

Vol. 1, No. 3 - April 17, 2007

     
A Special Message for the World Congress of Families in Warsaw, Poland

Strong Families, Strong Societies:  The Education Link

“A country is no freer and a society no stronger
than the families that comprise it.”

There are several important conditions that promote and protect liberty:

• A stable rule of law that applies to all citizens equally
• People enthusiastic about their own independence
• The eternal vigilance urged by so many shapers of free societies

There’s one more thing — strong, confident families.

A country is no freer and a society no stronger than the families that comprise it.  When families grow weak, the state grows dangerous.  Hitler understood this.  So did Stalin and many other despots, and they actively undermined family relationships and parental authority and responsibility in order to strengthen their own positions.

The greatest vehicle for weakening the family and empowering the state has always been and still is government mandated and controlled schooling.

The education of all children, from the moment that they can get along without a mother's care, shall be in state institutions at state expense.
– Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto

When the state controls the worldview and the intellectual and social development of children, the state controls all.

John Taylor Gatto, award-winning former public school teacher from New York, author, and speaker,wrote:

Public schools, more than any other single force, have been the agency to unravel American family life.  Schools preempt family authority, replacing it with a bogus type of "expert" authority.  Family culture and community uniqueness give way to homogenized anti-culture in the notorious "mental hygiene" regimentations of traditional schooling.

Gatto again...

Children need to understand that the ultimate form of private property is full possession of one's own mind and volition.

Much of our battle today for freedom, for strong families and societies, for our children’s intellectual, emotional and social health, is futile for one reason:  We have not removed the source of the disease.  While we battle the sickness at one end, we continue to introduce the infection at the other.

Parents everywhere are experiencing this problem, but the United States presents a particularly good example.  Families and the organizations and churches that support them spend a large portion of their time now trying to prevent children from embracing the worldviews and the self-destructive habits they’re exposed to in state schools. They spend another chunk of time helping to recover children who have been lost to the system.

But there is hope on the horizon.

Parents around the world are standing up and demanding that the state take its hands out of their children’s minds, emotions and morals. They are choosing and starting private schools and homeschools as forms of education that will safeguard their children’s well-being and equip them to become leaders, not followers. They are saying no to state schooling and yes to a bright and hopeful future.

Here are just a few examples:

• 8 Million American children are educated without state interference
• Thousands of small, private schools operate in India, Africa and China
• Parents in Germany risk their freedom to educate their children
• Homeschooling is on the rise in France
• Private and home education are growing in Ukraine

The move toward education free of the state is growing.  The long experiment with giving our children over to government for the formation of their minds and for their social development has produced devastating results for both families and societies, and parents are saying, “Enough!”

Now is the time to act, to take back our children and to build a world of peace and freedom for all.  The state will not and cannot do it.  The future depends on families.  It depends on parents willing to embrace their responsibilities and on others to support those families.

We invite you to consider your options as parents and family advocates.  Our web site offers information and resources to help you get started on the road to independent, family-controlled education.

Please join us in the battle for a free, healthy, bright future for our children and all humanity.

1.  John Taylor Gatto, “We Need Less Compulsory School, Not More,” The Florida Parent-Educators Association Almanac, June 5, 1992.

2.  John Taylor Gatto, The Trapped Flea, speech SepCon 2004.

3.  Alliance for Separation of School & State, Statistics and Facts.

4.  James Tooley, “Private Schools for the Poor,” Education Next, 2005 No. 4.

5.  Paul Belien, “2007 German horror tale,” The Washington Times, February 28, 2007.

6.  “Homeschooling on the Rise in France,” Home School Legal Defense Association web site.

7.  “U.S. Homeschoolers Help Persecuted Families in Ukraine,” Home School Legal Defense Association web site; and ACSI Member Directory (select Ukraine under Country to see list of schools).

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Alliance e-Notes
Last updated April 17, 2007