All Terrain Thinking

A Compendium of things I think are Important

Consequences In Life, Often Unanticipated

 

2. EDUCATION

"On one occasion Aristotle was asked how much educated men were superior to those uneducated: "As much," said he, "as the living are to the dead." - Diogenes

The U.S. public school system is the largest socialized industry in America. In New York City, there are 5 administrators for every 9 teachers. New York State has more administrators than the entire European Economic Community. In the American public schools, only 43% of employees actually "teach," while the rest "administer," or are plain and simple...educational bureaucrats. Other countries have over 80% of employees teaching. According to a CBS "60 Minutes" show, in New York City, some custodians who do little work, and have allowed their physical plants to deteriorate to alarming conditions, can easily make $100,000 a year, answer to no one, and are vigorously protected by their union. We learn from a July 28, 1998 article in the Wall Street Journal that, "Students at a Brooklyn public high school are learning how to write graffiti for academic credit. ...Exams tested the student's knowledge, not of history or literature, but of graffiti principles. ...That a school could embrace a practice both illegal and destructive of the city’s spirit is a troubling indication of how far the educational system has strayed from its bearings."

Our American public schools are so poor, that a large percentage of kids graduating from public high schools are functionally illiterate. On tests, our American public school scholars can’t find their own country on a globe, or their state on a U.S. map. On July 1 1996, a random sampling found that only 9 out of 40 even knew what our July 4th holiday was celebrating. They can't add, subtract, spell, and haven't the foggiest idea of the most basics of history. In 1995, 64% of public high school students couldn't pass a test on basic American culture, and 74% of fourth grade kids couldn't read at fourth grade levels. These weren't just schools in bad neighborhoods, but an average of the entire American public school system. In my own small Colorado town, a 1997 study found that our fourth graders scored from 29% to almost 50% of what they should know in all subjects. According to the "National Assessment of Educational Progress Study," only 4.8% of today’s 17 year-old students are able to perform at the reading level found in the professional - technical workplace. Makes it kind of hard to qualify for a job, doesn’t it? Schools are so foreboding, that metal detectors are required to sift out firearms brought to school. According to NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw, on November 15 1995, 131,000 guns are brought to American public schools each day.

According to School Reform News, in 1960 there were 26 students enrolled in the public schools for every teacher. In 1995 there were 17. In inflation adjusted dollars, teacher pay increased by 45% during that time and per pupil spending rose 212%, while student achievement crashed into the level of absurdity. It isn't poor salaries or large classes that are responsible for the despicable public schools.

Discipline in the classroom is from the distant past, and teaching has become a lost art, even though, on a per hour basis, teachers make higher salaries than ever. Ignore the propaganda issued by teacher's unions, which assert that teachers are poorly paid. They teach 180 days a year, for a few hours a day, meaning they work far less than a thousand hours a year, including grading papers and preparation at home. That works out to twice wages of a master electrician on a per hour basis. Know of any trade that gives a three-month vacation each year? Know of a trade where you are off work at about three o'clock in the afternoon? Teachers are well paid, but too many do a poor job. Most public schools are dangerous places today. Trying to keep the little menaces off the streets till they are in their late teens is what they do, and not much else. Public schools of 45 years ago taught the basics, and no one was graduated without knowing spelling, arithmetic, geography, history, government, and a foreign language...at an absolute minimum.

Today, schools in major cities are covered with graffiti, and many of their inmates look like they belong in a federal prison. Education in America has become a witticism. No wonder there are a plethora of private schools springing up, for parents who care and can afford them. For those who don't or can't, which seems to be a majority of parents in America today, the little darlings graduate into doing the most basic of non skilled jobs. Even in fast food emporiums, they don't have to know how to count. All they do is push the buttons with the correct picture, enter the amount you hand them, and the change is figured automatically.

The pitiful state of our youth who have graduated from our abysmal schools, is reflected in the fact that high paying jobs requiring math, education, and smarts of the most basic kinds, are going unfilled. Most graduates of public schools can't write coherent sentences, or read more than a few dozen words a minute, and with minimal understanding. The abilities of our crop of mouth breathing high school graduates, in the major cities especially, is so incredibly pitiful, that words cannot adequately describe them, when compared to graduates of forty five years ago.

Are colleges much better? Nope. A 1995 study revealed that fully half of four-year graduates couldn't understand a bus schedule. Harvard, our most prestigious learning center, has courses titled, "The drama of homosexuality," "The case against capitalism," "Radical movements in modern America," "Witches, werewolves, and ouija boards," and "Contemporary feminist and gender theory." Across town at MIT, (Mass. Institute of Technology) a CNN broadcast of Feb. 9 1996, detailed a few dubious courses offered at that revered institution of higher learning. Taught, are courses titled, "How to tell a joke," "Elevator etiquette," "Nerd love," "Overcoming shyness," "Infrared love game," "Table manners," and, "How to walk, and how not to walk." Students were shown graduating with a "doctor of charm" degree with the well known "Pomp and Circumstance," by Sir Edward Elgar, as accompaniment. All in fun? Perhaps, but those absurdities take valuable time from genuine academic achievement, which America finds itself extremely short of in 1999. Needless to say, such shenanigans didn’t go on when I was in college.

On a June 1996 Jay Leno program, Jay interviewed several graduates of a four-year college. They had just graduated, had diplomas in hand., and were still wearing their graduation gowns and caps. He asked them various questions, the answers to which I knew in the fifth grade, such as: "At what temperature does water boil?" Jay randomly asked questions of these graduates that were so basic, I considered them stupid. They were know nothings, holding a four year college diploma in their hot little hands. Time after time, these kids couldn’t answer the questions. Jay regularly does what he calls "Jay Walking," which usually proves that American graduates of the public schools are virtual morons. A study revealed that people appearing in "Who’s Who," read an average of 20 books a year, while public school teachers average reading but one...usually fiction.

A 1998 Massachusetts teacher certification test was flunked by 59% of applicants. Some, "could not define a noun or a verb, of what democracy means, or the meaning of the word imminent."

Colleges are interested, mainly it seems, in seeing how much federal funding they can get for "research," and how many females or minorities they can enroll to keep their numbers P.C., (politically correct) as far as race and gender are concerned. Those colleges that do care, often have to give remedial reading and math instruction to entrants, so they can become literate enough to understand the professors' instructions. Millions of college students shouldn't be there at all, but should be performing the jobs they are capable of, which may be manufacturing, merchandising, or repairing something; typing, plumbing, welding, forging, printing, or even washing dishes, but not tying up the college system with their demands to be educated, because they are poor, black, Indian, or female, regardless of I.Q., SAT test scores, or abilities.

Functionally illiterate "graduates" and inept teachers, are the consequences of a basic American desire to keep people from being hurt, or making someone look inadequate. We wouldn’t want little or big Johnny to feel inferior now, would we? We wouldn't want a totally inept teacher to feel like an outcast, or lose her job, so we’ll just keep her on the payroll. What has happened to our schools is the inevitable consequence of "SFN."

Providing luxurious facilities in the hope of raising grades and achievement hasn’t worked either. According to the American Legislative Exchange Council, which is an association of state legislators, $2 trillion has been spent on education in twenty years, in the main for fancy buildings and facilities. "The data convincingly demonstrate that after the most sustained financial commitment ever made to solving the problems of America’s public schools, (they) are performing no better," said Samuel Brunelli, the council's executive director. The consequences of all this spending have been that the expensive facilities aren’t appreciated or even cared for, because no effort was put forth by students or faculty to achieve them. Only the taxpayers put forth the effort, paying huge tax bills for the fancy buildings and equipment, which didn’t raise student achievement one iota.

Parents teach their children at least 50% of all they will ever know by the time they enter school, and by age 8, the brain has reached its full size. Parents teach children to speak, eat, bathe, dress, walk, coordinate their movements, and many times, to read. Is there any reason why parents should not be responsible for the remaining small percentage of schooling? As an aside, when Frederich Froebel conceived the idea of a "kindergarten" in 19^th century Germany, it wasn't about kids learning to garden, but to break the mother's influence on the kiddies so they could begin their regimentation under the state school system. The states have decided that "SFN,"as far as education is concerned, will work, but it doesn't. When no direct cost is involved in something, regardless of sterling motives, the "gift" is rarely appreciated, and in the case of "SFN" schools, only a small fraction of the possible benefits of instruction are make use of, or appreciated. The consequences of "SFN" schools is poor education, whereas schools that are paid for directly, are an entirely different story.

Poor teaching is not the only problem with our colleges, and even high schools. It is the politically 'left' slant on things which professors give to their students, which causes those attitudes to proliferate over and over again. Many wags doubt that college professors are far to the left in the political spectrum, but a survey done by Dartmouth students leaves no doubt. The kids canvassed the voting rolls in New Hampshire, which rolls are open to public inspection. They checked the professors in the departments of English, Government, History, Philosophy, and Religion to see how these individuals are registered...by political party. An astounding 89% of Dartmouth's professors in these departments were registered Democrats. With one exception, the rest were independents, with zero being Republicans. Does that tell you something about our college teachers, and perhaps explain why graduates lean almost wholly to the left? A classic example of our college professors is Angela Davis. Ms. Davis, a self described "black woman communist," made the FBI's 10 most wanted list after helping 3 prisoners escape from California's Soledad prison. The escape resulted in the murder of a judge and 2 convicts. Davis now teaches esthetics, philosophy, and women's studies at San Francisco State University and the San Francisco Art Institute.

The job of a teacher is to help and educate. A teacher or professor will generally fall for any scheme or political party that promises to legislate, help, give handouts to, equalize, or uplift a people commonly considered to 'need it.' This is accurately called the 'left' of the political spectrum, taxing the rich and giving it to the poor...all with supposedly the best of motives. After all, as Lyndon Johnson, the epitome of the left once said, "We are going to take it from the haves and give it to the have nots, who need it so much." The consequence of having so many left leaning teachers and professors, is students learning their attitudes, and the process self perpetuates. Students have an unreal tendency to emulate the beliefs and attitudes of their teachers. College professors will generally teach their kids that 'we must pass laws to equalize everyone,' naturally by stealing from the rich, who are considered to be evil, and giving to the poor, who are pictured as Lazarus: poor, righteous and deserving. The consequence of this, is a generation believing it is just fine to legislate the equalization of everyone, by taking from the haves and giving it to the have nots, even if they don’t work for it, deserve it, or appreciate it. Why not teach work, thought, self-reliance, and effort?

It is the pitiful state of public education in America that makes our salvation virtually impossible. Most Americans who are products of those state schools, can't or won’t read, are unable to reason or think, and spend evenings glued to inane sit-coms on the boob-tube, with weekends reserved for watching football. A decent book with pertinent observations about our current state, and some solutions, might be lucky if it sells 20,000 copies, which is about .01% of our population. With no one being able or willing read, think, and vote logically, what chance is there? Perhaps I am shuffling in a dank, dark saraband of lost causes, but we must never give up.

When public schools were forcibly integrated, it became apparent there were radically different levels of capacity and achievement amongst the newly mixed students. So as not to give the poor achievers bad feelings or inferiority complexes, it became chic to 'pass on' those who really didn’t pass at all. Public school boards across the country forced teachers to pass kids from one grade to the next, so as not to hurt their little psyches, less they think others wouldn’t like them, and they be ruined for life with a mind debilitating inferiority complex. Before forced integration and bussing, statistics show student achievement was far higher, and there was no 'pass on' system, regardless of the racial makeup, physical condition, or location of a school. Currently, many Negroes have had enough of forced integration and bussing. They want their kids to go to neighborhood schools they can walk to, and exert influence on, regardless of racial makeup. After forty years, hundreds of billions of gallons of fuel, billions of dollars in wages and bus costs, and billions of hours riding busses, the wonderful attempt to equalize, integrate, and uplift, has amounted a big fat goose egg. The horrendous, virtually unfathomable cost of this forty year 'experiment' has resulted in absolutely nothing, other than fantastic cost, undiminished race hatred, thousands of court trials, outraged members of all races, huge bureaucracies such as the "Equal Opportunities Commission," (EEOC) and other alphabet soup agencies with the power and force of law, making us obey their whims. Understand: Those who started this mess presumably had no evil intent. The perpetrators only wanted to help those they thought to be in need; in the case of the schools, the kids. The consequences of the attempted integration - leveling - equalization process in America's public schools has been functionally illiterate graduates, destroyed school properties, outrageous taxes, violence, lack of achievement, and an entire nation racked with racial disharmony, generally believing government not only can, but should, "take from the rich and give to the poor, who need it so much," - Lyndon Baines Johnson. The consequence is, that America, thanks to its public schools, has become a third rate nation, exporting jobs that require a modicum of literacy and ability, and a trade imbalance that has bankrupted us.

As an aside, from grades five to ten, my parents sent me to perhaps the best private school in the country, Sidwell Friends, in Washington D.C. The facilities, buildings, and equipment were appalling. The school was housed in old firetrap buildings, and I haven’t the slightest idea of whether the teachers were "certified" or not. All I know is that the academics were strenuous, to say the least, and we were taught to think, not memorize and repeat by rote. We played soccer, tennis, gave Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, studied Latin, and put in many hours of arduous study, just to pass. If you could even graduate from Sidwell Friends, you were assured entrance into any college, anywhere, so great were its educational achievements. I'll never forget Mr. LeGrande, Miss Evans, Mrs. Nye, Mr. Barger, or "Pop" Wannon. In the tenth grade, I returned to public school, which had wonderful buildings and equipment, but not the academic level of Sidwell Friends, with its dilapidated buildings. Public schools then, were hundreds of percentage points better than they are now, and no one graduated without having gotten down the basics, which seem to escape most current graduates.

Today, public school teachers are obviously inferior to those of yore, when I was in school. This is one of the consequences of union membership, which is easily traced back to the ancient guilds, in which no member was allowed to outperform any other member, advertise, improvise, or innovate. Teacher's unions will defend an inferior teacher, and strike if he or she is dismissed for poor performance. A public employee in a union, is usually set for life, regardless of performance or ability. Union membership in America is steadily increasing in the governmental sector, while it has decreased to microscopic numbers in the private. The result of teacher's unions protecting their members with fierce determination, regardless of individual abilities, has been poor quality teachers. Teacher's unions have the duty to protect all members, equalizing the experts in the profession with the bad apples...to the harm of the trade and the students.

On an ABC news broadcast on Sunday, March 2 1997, a story concerned itself with the miserable performance of the Philadelphia school system and its unionized teachers. One student of Olney High remarked that his teacher said if they would simply show up in class every day, they would have to do no work, and he would give them an "A." Many other interviews were indicative of students not learning anything, but merely 'graduating' with empty heads. An NPR story on September 3, 1997 pointed out that in Washington D.C.'s public schools, 80% of fourth graders, don't know what fourth graders should know, 40% of high schoolers drop out, and those that don't, can’t perform in college. The story said that over a three year period, $60 million, which was to be used for building repairs and maintenance, was siphoned off for hiring friends and relatives of administration, hundreds of whom can't be found or identified as to what they do, or where they work.

Speaking of teacher's unions, in December 1996, the Oakland California school board voted 100% to designate the slurred, broken, abominable English spoken by the district’s 53% black students, as a second language, to be henceforth known as "Ebonics," a combination of "ebony" and "phonics." In other words, the board realized the district's union teachers were so incompetent, inept, or lazy, that they were unable to teach correct English. The black students in the district made up 71% of the special education classes, and had a grade point average of 1.8, which is about what is required to graduate legitimately from kindergarten. Pity these poor black 'graduates' from Oakland High, with their second language credit in "Ebonics," when they attempt to get a decent job...without even the most basic requirement of being able to speak their native language. The opprobrium of Oakland goes so far as to tell us the "Ebonic" speaking blacks got their language from Africa, since they are so called "African-Americans," another bankroll of three dollar bills. As will be told in chapter seven of this effort, the last slaves were imported from Africa in 1808, so the ignorance and perfidy can be traced directly to bad home life, laziness, bad teachers, bad schools, and of course "SFN." (The Oakland school board later softened their "Ebonics" stance, after a huge outcry.)

During the 1996 presidential campaign, Bill Clinton promised to send thousands of college student volunteers to help teach third graders to read. Those of us who have a modicum of probity, realized that was simply a tacit admission that union teachers either can't or aren't teaching kids to read...in the third or any other grade. That promise was quickly dropped, replaced by more pie in the sky promises that political grandees always make. No one answered the question as to who would teach the college student volunteers to read!

One sector of education has been drastically reduced, with debilitating consequences. In the public school in which I finished high school, trades were taught. Trade courses were offered to prepare students for careers in auto repair, carpentry, printing, woodworking, stenography, and even technical stagecrafts. Today, few schools teach a trade, believing we will survive on a "service technology," rather than getting on the line, assembling, making, building, fixing, or inventing. No one seems to like to dirty his or her hands any longer. The consequences of this lack of teaching a trade, are that our manufacturing jobs have disappeared. Far too many baby boomers and generation "X"ers can't fix anything around the house or car, because wood, auto, or machine shops are not common in public schools any longer. I remember having to make, from scratch, a real nut and bolt in Newt Wondrack's machine shop, from a hunk of cold rolled steel, before going on to other things. In wood shop at Sidwell Friends, Mr. Baker made us do certain projects using power and hand tools. I still have napkin rings I made years ago at Friends.

SOLUTIONS

"It is not possible to spend any prolonged period visiting public school classrooms without being appalled by the mutilation visible everywhere---mutilation of spontaneity, of joy in learning, of pleasure in creating, of sense of self. The public schools---those "Killers of the dream," to appropriate a phrase of Lillian Smith's—are the kind of institution one cannot really dislike until one gets to know them well. Because adults take the schools so much for granted, they fail to appreciate what grim, joyless places most American schools are, how oppressive and petty are the rules by which they are governed, how intellectually sterile and esthetically barren the atmosphere, what an appalling lack of civility obtains on the part of the teachers and principals, what contempt they unconsciously display for children as children." - Charles Silberman

Public or forced education by the state began in Prussia, after Napoleon's amateur soldiers beat the professional Prussian soldiers. When the state started, and made attendance to their schools compulsory, the results were just what a socialistic state required: Unthinking obedient soldiers who could follow orders, unthinking, obedient workers in the mines, unthinking, obedient civil servants, unthinking, obedient industry and factory workers, and just plain unthinking, obedient citizens who would follow their leaders…the leaders being the government and politicians like Bismark and Hitler, who would eventually unify the German States and attempt to conquer the world. State educated children grew into adults who were incapable of original thought, sustained, comprehensive thought, and even simple logic. This schooling was probably responsible for the two world wars, both started by Germany. State public schools take children away from their loving, caring parents for many hours each day, substituting regimentation, uniformity, and mass learning. When you want to teach children to think, you treat them seriously when they are little, give them responsibilities, talk openly to them, provide privacy and solititude for them, and make them readers and thinkers of significant thoughts from the beginning.

This method was imported into America by the likes of John Dewey and Horace Mann, who were afraid of American children becoming "over educated." The phonics method of reading was discouraged by these socialists, and one of Dewey's teachers and former professors said that, "Little attention should be paid to reading."

The first solution for education is to take it out of the 'public' sector. All of it. It has been a hundred plus year record of failure. Nothing 'public' works too well, and the public school system has gone the way of all flesh...it just took a bit longer. How to remove government from what it ought not to not be involved in at the beginning? That is difficult in any situation, and as far as education is concerned, it will be even more so, but the voucher system, home schooling, and charter schools are a small beginning.

History is replete with famous, intelligent, wealthy, and successful people who received little or no formal or public education. Abraham Lincoln received, at best, one year of formal education, and that was held in a one-room schoolhouse. 'Honest Abe' (he wasn't!) decided to succeed. He learned to read, studied law, apprenticed, and worked valiantly to succeed...and did...without public schools manned by unionized teachers, and governed by bureaucrats and "administrators." Lincoln is no favorite of mine, but he is an example of what one can do with hard work and not much else. Whenever any service or job is consigned to the public or governmental sector, it becomes a virtually unbreakable habit, and the longer it exists, the more ingrained it becomes. Public education is one of the oldest such habits. We are so accustomed to public schools, which everyone knows have failed, that eliminating them is unthinkable for the illogical. Instead, more and more money is thrown at them, more deluxe buildings are built, property taxes go through the roof, and more and more functional illiterates are 'graduated.' Throwing money at a problem rarely solves it.

Think about education for a moment. To repeat: More than half of everything ever learned is absorbed before kindergarten. Parents teach speech, language, movement, eating, manners, bowel and bladder control, dressing, thinking, play, sleep, bathing, balance, and just about everything else a child needs to know. Responsible parents have children that can already read, count, and do a host of other things, before turning their tikes over to a union teacher in the public school mess, to stagnate for 13 years. Why is it such a horrendous idea for the parents to be responsible for the rest of education, when they have already accomplished half of it? By being "responsible for the rest," I mean doing it at home, or at least selecting the school, paying for it, and having parental influence and supervision. Is that asking too much?

As it is now, the kids learn a tiny fraction of what they could learn in a school that educated for profit, reputation, and being in competition with other schools. If the approximately 75% of property taxes that go to the public schools were eliminated, and that part of rents too, parents would have plenty of money to pay to educate their kids in the way they thought fit. There are a lot of plumbers who want junior to be like dad, and could care less about other subjects, and the same with other trades and occupations. Adult chefs may want little chefs, and perhaps some would like their kids to learn advanced cooking at the school they chose. No trade or profession can be started too young.

Any accurate comparison between the public schooled verses the home schooled, proves that the home schooled are far more advanced than public schoolers. A 1998 study of 20,000 home schooled students gave startling results. In grades 1-4, they tested 1 grade higher, and in grades 5-8, 4 grades higher. They also watched 66% less TV than public school students, and that fact alone should make a thoughtful parent think twice about a public school for their child. In May 2000, home schooled children won the first three places in the National Spelling Bee, and a home schooled child won the National Geography contest. The parents who take on home schooling, learn along with the children. Ask any of them. Many parents are intimidated by the idea of teaching their offspring, but when they both learn together, as they always do, it becomes a distinct pleasure and challenge. Home schooling is increasing rapidly, now counting over 3 million, and with excellent results. Some say public schools are valuable because of their facilities and the benefits of associating with peers, but there are so many home schoolers now, that kids always have friends to associate with, and every day thousands of home schools combine to make trips to museums, concerts, laboratories, and colleges. I am not sure that being associated with many public school cretins are desirable anyway. When examined for college entrance, the home or parochial schooled more often than not score higher than do graduates of public high schools. A 1997 survey found that 86% of home schooled students had computers, as compared to a 34% national average.

All schools, other than home ones, should be private, for profit, and compete with each other. Schools left to the free market would blossom as roses in May, with costs in direct proportion to their offerings, just as every other free market business does. As the public schools emptied, thanks to vouchers, charters, home and parochial schooling, and eventual elimination of most property taxes, the buildings could be put on the market and bought by private institutions, who would compete with other for profit schools.

Imagine that refrigerator manufacture was "public," government controlled, your taxes paid for your refrigerator, and the very thought of having "private," "for profit," and "competitive" refrigerators was just unthinkable, as most screech now, when hearing of any plan to get rid of public schools. Know how your refrigerator would look and act? Not anything like the one you now have, unless perhaps it is 60 years old. Your refrigerator would be exactly like the public schools: Expensive to operate, inefficient, poorly designed, and it probably wouldn't get very cold. It would cost a fortune to buy, go on strike, stop for a couple of months in the summer, and each year it would cost more, and work less.

Towns and cities of all sizes are beginning to learn that privatization works extremely well. They are privatizing all sorts of activities, ranging from fire departments, airports, street cleaning, rubbish removal, and even record keeping and billing. Privatization is cheaper, far more effective and efficient, and saves the taxpayers gobs of money. Why not schools? Think about it, and it will seem to be the next logical step. Would you like your property taxes cut by 75%, or your rent reduced in exchange for being able to control your children’s destiny and education? Most would.

Colleges also should be totally privatized, and all governmental funding eliminated. Perhaps the University of Phoenix could be used as an example. That fully accredited private university accepts no one under 23, and only if they are gainfully employed, and can pay the tuition. Its 40,000 adult students can earn B.A. and M.A. degrees. The university accepts no handouts, pays taxes like every other business, and makes a profit to boot. There is no reason on God's green earth why all education shouldn't be private, for profit, and compete with other educational institutions in all facets, be it academics, tuition pricing, courses offered, times of classes, parking, and act just like a Wal Mart or other business competing for customers and profits. That is the only way education can be reasonably priced for those wanting it, and freed from bureaucrats, subsidies, and having 'students' who should be out on the job rather than taking up time and space in a classroom. Why should the elderly or childless pay through the nose in property taxes or rent to inadequately school other's kids?

As proof that it can be done; in tiny Winhall, Vermont, parents became so enraged with the state's unfair property tax and school funding laws, that in April 1998, they voted four to one to close the town's only public grammar school. They plan on creating a private school, paid for with private funds and some block grants from the state. Residents of Winhall will still have to pay property taxes, but a gigantic hole has been gouged in the public school system in that town, and it wouldn't surprise me if they eventually got free of confiscatory property taxes by telling the state to drop dead, privatizing the entire school system in the town, and freeing themselves from all state and federal control of education, which is as it should be.

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