The Weekly Sam: Are Compulsory School Attendance Good for America? by Sam Blumenfeld
(Sam wrote this article in 2005. A link to the original document is posted below)
Should a child be forced to attend a public school that will turn him into a functional
illiterate? Since no public school will guarantee that a child will be taught to read in a
manner that will help him achieve high literacy, why should a parent send a child to that
kind of school? Indeed, why should compulsory school attendance laws force parents to
do something that wil1 harm their children?
It is assumed by the vast majority of Americans that the issue of compulsory school
attendance is a settled matter, part and parcel of every civilized nation-state, and a
prerequisite of a democratic society. We all acknowledge that a representative form of
government requiTes an educated electorate for its survival.
But what happens when that government’s schools no longer know how to teach children
to read and write, when those schools turn children not into civilized citizens, but into
barbarians? What happens when millions of parents feel compelled to remove their
children from government schools in order to make sure that their children do get an
education? What happens is that the basic premises of compulsory attendance and
government education come into question.
The glaring fact is that despite our compulsory attendance laws, we now have more
illiteracy and more ignorance among Americans than before such laws were enacted. The
first compulsory school attendance law was passed in Massachusetts in 1852 and by 1918
every state in the Union had such a law. Yet, the fact is that these laws have merely
increased the amount of time children spend in school, not the amount of learning or
knowledge they acquire.
The Way It Was
To find out how much better educated Americans were before compulsory attendance
laws and government schools existed, all we have to do is read DuPont de Nemours’
fascinating little book, National Education in the United States ofAmerica, published in
1812. He writes:
“The United States are more advanced in their educational facilities than most countries.
They have a large number of primary schools; and as their paternal affection protects
children from working in the fields, it is possible to send them to the school-master–a
condition which does not prevail in Europe.
“Most young Americans, therefore, can read, write and cipher. Not more than four in a
thousand arc unable to write legi bly–even neatly .. ..
“England, Holland, the Protestant Cantons of Switzerland more nearly approach the
standard of the United States, because in those countries the Bible is read; it is considered
a duty to read it to children; and in that form of religion the sermons and liturgy in the
language of the people tend to increase and formulate ideas of responsibility.
Controversy, also has developed argwnentation and has thus given room for the exercise
of logic.
“In America, a great nwnber of people read the Bible, and all the people read a
newspaper. The fathers read aloud to their children while breakfast is being prepared–a
task which occupies the mothers for three quarters of an hour every morning. And as the
newspapers of the United States are filled with all sorts of narratives… they disseminate
an enormous amount of information.”
Obviously, back in the very early days of this republic, education was a family affair
closely connected to religious practice. A nation built on Biblical principles had to ba a
highly literate one. In addition, all of this education was achieved without any
government involvement, without any centralized educational bureaucracy, without any
professors of education, or accrediting agencies or teacher certification. And, most
significantly, without any compulsory attendance laws.
The Way It Is
Contrast that happy picture of complete educational freedom and high literacy with the
present situation in which the State has asswned the function of educator, at great
expense to the taxpayer, with all sorts of laws and regulations forcing the population to
patronize a system that is turning out functional illiterates by the millions.
According to an article in the Spring 1989 issue of Education Canada, published by the
Canadian Education Association:
“It is currently estimated that one million Canadians are almost totally illiterate and
another four million are termed ‘functionally illiterate.’ In the United States these figures
are estimated respectively at 26 million and 60 million.”
Both Canada and the United States have had compulsory attendance laws for decades.
The purpose of these laws was to make certain that every child was educated. The laws
were particularly aimed at the children of the poor, and yet it is they who have suffered
the most at the hands of government education.
Even Secretary of Education Cavazos, in 1989, admitted in the frankest terms that the
government education system was failing the American people. In his sixth annual report
card on American schools, he repeated the well-known litany of failures that still plague
American education: declining SAT scores, declining interest in math and science,
declining literacy, and a soaring dropout rate in Washington, DC. He said that we were
still wallowing in a ”tide of mediocrity,” and that “we must do better or perish as the
nation we know today.”
Has anything changed since 1989? Yes, it has all gotten worse. In fact, it was an
alarming report on American literacy issued in 2007 by the National Endowment for the
Arts that informed Americans that the reading problem had deteriorated further since
Secretary Cavazos issued his own alarming assessment. The chairman of the
Endowment, Dana Gioia, stated:
‘This is a massive social problem. We are losing the majority of the new generation.
They will not achieve anything close to their potential because of poor reading.”
The Endowment report revealed that the number of 17-year-olds who never read for
pleasure increased from 9 percent in 1984 to 19 percent in 2004. Almost half of
Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 never read books for pleasure. Why? Because
reading has become a painful, tortuous exercise that they wish to avoid.
The simple truth is that literacy is not at all difficult to achieve, provided the schools use
the right phonetic teaching methods. Indeed, the home-school movement has already
proven that parents can actually do a better job of teaching reading than our high-priced
professionals.
It has also been shown that children progress better academically when taught at home,
and that the cost of educating a child at home is less than $1,000 a year.
So why do we need compulsory attendance laws? We need them so that the ruling liberal
elite can dumb down the population and make sure they can’t read. For proof of this,
listen to the words of Professor Anthony G. Oettinger of Harvard University, given in a
lecture to an audience of Telecom executives in 1982:
“The present ‘traditional’ concept of literacy has to do with the ability to read and write.
But the real question that confronts us today is: How do we help citizens function well in
their society? How can they acquire the skills necessary to solve their problems?
“Do we, for example, really want to teach people to do a lot of sums or write in ‘a fine
round hand’ when they have a five-dollar hand-held calculator or a word processor to
work with? Or, do we really have to have everybody literate–writing and reading in the
traditional sense–when we have the means through our technology to achieve a new
flowering of oral communication?
“What is speech recognition and speech synthesis all about if it does not lead to ways of
reducing the burden on the individual of the imposed notions of literacy that were a
product of nineteenth century economics and technology? ..
“It is the traditional idea that says certain forms of communication, such as comic books
are ‘bad.’ But in the modem context of functionalism they may not be all that bad.”
I doubt that there are any parents in America who send their children to school to learn to
read comic books. If anything, they want their children to be taught to read and write in
the traditional manner. They don’t consider learning to read as a “burden imposed on the
individual.” Rather, if taught in the proper phonetic manner, learning to read becomes a
joyful experience for children eager to expand the use of their minds and language.
Although the compulsory attendance laws were enacted to make sure that everyone
learned to read, their new application by the likes of Professor Oettinger and his liberal
colleagues is to make sure that the population can be controlled and manipulated by
schools that serve the agenda of the ruling elite.
There is no longer any need for compulsory attendance laws since the ruling class no
longer believes that literacy is for everyone, the poor and the rich. In reality, the
compulsory attendance laws are the linchpin in the plan for a socialist world government.
The Blumenfeld Archives
Such laws have been used by every modern dictator to control the people and mold the
minds of the children. Such laws are not only not needed in a free society, but ultimately
lead to its demise.