A few generations ago, public schools were governed by locals. They were safe, drug-free and there weren’t dropouts. Kids didn’t come from broken homes. The Lord’s prayer was said as was the allegiance to the flag.

Eventually the schools were taken over by state authorities, then federal authorities.

It’s better when students get something on their level, not just a uniform assignment given to everyone in the class.

When government funding for schools was introduced, we were promised that the government would help fund schools but never control them. (Famous last words!)

Introduction:

FDR confiscated American’s Gold. Nixon got rid of the gold standard.

Most promote social salvation through legislation.

Note: In some educator courses, I saw the same theme on repeat: society has problems, and the only way to fix them is bigger and bigger government. End note.

The reality is we get more freedom when the political party is smaller.

You can’t have free speech if you can’t have economic freedom to get the means to promote your views.

Note: Much of speech can be spread at low cost, but it is true that major operations do need funding. All freedoms are interconnected. End note.

Society should acknowledge the rights of families. Currently families don’t have rights.

Note: And the rights of parents in their role as parents are losing more and more freedoms. From homeschooling and beyond, there is a growing communist trend to view children as property of the state, not as under the supervision of the family. End note.

Diversity in education is being revolutionized by digital technology, which, in combination with the free market, can make education cheaper & better.

Note: There will always be a place for human teachers and tutors, but indeed, digital technology can help launch students forward. There are of course also major pitfalls to avoid. Many (perhaps most) online learning classes today are a joke. End note.

State schools are getting worse despite getting paid more and more.

Part 1: The Centrality of Education

Proverbs 22:6 says train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.

Someone said if I can shape the child in the first 7 years that will determine everything else.

Someone said who rocks the cradle rules the world.

The way to gain authority over education is to pay for it. That’s becoming possible by cheaper schooling through technology.

Education is how we pass on our beliefs, values and skills to the next generation. A good education entails passing on values and skills needed for success.

Note: Our schools are failing at all of these things on the most basic levels. End note.

Ultimately education is a debate over ethics. About what parents hold most dear.

Note: Each of us should vote for what we believe is right. We should not be ashamed of public morality. All politics are reflections of morality – about what we believe is inherently evil and should be punished, and what is inherently good and should be rewarded. Many are afraid to admit that religion and politics are twin brothers. We should raise our voices for good morality to govern all of our institutions, including, and perhaps especially, our schools. End note.

Many want the state to replace parents.

There can be no revolution without revolution in education.

Ch. 1: Educating for Liberty

“There can be no increase of liberty without a parallel increase in responsibility.” Pg.26

“Self-government is the basis of liberty.” Pg. 27

Over decades the state has been taking more and more control over our freedoms. In school all we learn is about how the government makes everything better.

Note: And how the government is the only hope for a better world. Christian schools teach individual responsibility, whereas secular schools shift the responsibility onto the state. The reality is that without self control, without those little units of government called the family, there is no hope for civilization. End note.

We say we’re trying to spread liberty around the world but we’re taking away the liberty at home.

When a person is ready to be responsible they are ready for liberty. Education is about preparing people for this responsibility in adulthood. But the welfare state teaches people to not be responsible, and treats adults like children and keeps extending its authority over adults. Any school subject you teach should teach the message that more liberty comes only with more responsibility.

Kids are learning that you can’t save for retirement, you can’t decide what health care to use, you can’t negotiate for your wages, and that the federal government has to do all of this for adults. What we really want kids to learn is that they can grow up and be independent. The controlling nanny state can only go away if we cut off its funding.

Research analysis and public speaking allow students to be creative and pursue liberty.

When kids are old enough, they need to have their schooling turned over to them to master it.

Note: A well educated person is one who needs a teacher less and less. It was said of Jesus that he needed no man to teach him. End note.

Conventional college means the parents turn over everything to the college, even though the college doesn’t share much about their worldview and morality – parents pay for things they don’t agree with.

Many kids aren’t prepared emotionally, academically, or in terms of responsibility and self-government for the transition from high school senior to college freshman, so they end up wasting their time.

You can graduate from college at 18 while at home.

It’s not uncommon for students today to get the first two years of college while in high school. That saves tens of thousands of dollars.

As long as the child meets the standards of the curriculum this parent has selected, the child should become increasingly independent as he gets older. The student should be able to advance without parental nagging. Parents and students must interact and provide mutual support.

The curriculum must teach that free men, creative and economic growth comes from personal responsibility, not the government. Growth comes from entrepreneurship and reinvestment of capital. The curriculum must show that self-government is the basis of liberty.

You don’t want your kid going to college to learn about the benefits of the welfare state and Keynesian economics. You don’t want them to be taught the autonomous sovereignty of the state. It is the parent’s responsibility to select a curriculum for the child that matches the parent’s worldview!

Parents have authority over children because children are irresponsible. When the child becomes responsible, the parent doesn’t need to exercise as much authority over them.

Ch. 2 Educating for Leadership

If you can read and articulate ideas in ways people can understand, you’re a leader.

The best leaders are the libertarian leaders who live by example – people who are not interested in position, in power, but whose focus is self-improvement. Part of their self-improvement is to help others improve, just like the Alcoholics Anonymous program. We should speak softly and not carry a big stick. At schools they talk about freedom, but the very existence of the government school is anti-freedom. See the book The Road to Serfdom. We give lip service to freedom, but continue to give the state more authority.

Self-perfection should be our goal. Many people give up on this and use their energy mingling in the affairs of others. Those who cannot rule themselves are usually dedicated to ruling others, and those who can rule themselves usually have no interest in ruling others.

Leaders should be about persuasion, not coercion.

Self-improvement, self-government; this is the only way to have a flourishing civilization. The solution is not state government.

Leadership shouldn’t just be getting people to vote to extend the power of the state.

Don’t try to capture the state, try to shrink it.

See the book Ideas Have Consequences by Richard Weaver.

Free people are more creative than unfree people – if you want creativity to flourish, decrease the state.

Be able to explain the principles of freedom and philosophy clearly.

People will listen to you if you’re committed to standing by your principles.

Leadership is more about one-on-one interactions than group speeches.

Note: The good pastor is the one who goes around talking to the members, not just the one who gives good speeches. End note.

A good administrator knows the details of what employees are going through, not just someone who conducts meetings.

Young people are idealistic. Use that. They want to commit to a consistent, practical philosophy of life.

Obama attracted young people by coming in the name of idealism and hope. But his philosophy of the state as an agent of healing was not practical, because bureaucratization restricts creativity and humanity.

We need voluntary transactions and associations. We need to bear the responsibility of our actions without the state bailing us out.

Leadership is about commitment and understanding the freedom philosophy in a practical way. If you can teach clear principles, you are a leader.

The alcoholics anonymous program is good. The main goal is focusing on yourself and secondarily is helping others to get that message. You have to be successful in what you’re preaching to get people to follow you in it. The AA program is about attraction, not promotion. AA is a libertarian program based solely on gaining sobriety and spreading sobriety.

Note: A freedom system is about inviting others to participate, not requiring them to do so. Government schools are an anti-freedom operation. End note.

Leaders must be honest or they will not be followed. Trust is granted by followers to the leader and can be revoked at any time. Competent mastery of skills is less important than integrity. A leader first leads himself and then others.

You learn leadership by working closely with a successful leader. Showing up to a meeting and making yourself useful to someone else is essential. Loyal followers are who get positions of leadership.

Ch. 3 Educating for Legacy, Becoming Volunteers

It’s easier today than ever to leave a legacy. It’s easy to use the internet to get your ideas out there forever. Nothing like this has ever happened in history.

Your vocation is different than your career – vocation is the important thing that you need to do in life, doing what you’re most difficult to be replaced in. The word vocation used to mean calling. Today it just means job.

For some people your job is your calling, but for most people their calling is different from their job that puts bread on the table. Focus on your calling and be flexible about what job you have.

Spend several hours of your day concentrating on your calling/vocation, developing your talent for your calling, etc.

You can start a free blog. You can make a cheap video online. This is unprecedented.

Being a leader is more about having something to say than knowing how to say it.

Note: It is the same with teachers. Training of teachers should focus on their content area, not on how to teach. If you know your content well, most everything else will come naturally. I believe it was David Barton of Wall Builders who said the problem with modern education is that the teachers don’t know their subject. Indeed, a teaching license should be much more about subject mastery than educational philosophy. And our educational philosophy isn’t exactly pure gold either. We’ve been operating on the philosophy of John Dewey which in short is a rejection of all things traditional and a promotion of all things Marxist. End note.

Help young people find ways to be volunteers. People always need help.

Getting rid of the gold standard meant lots of inflation and serious betrayal of the people.

Ron Paul was good at being a doctor but most irreplaceable in his work promoting Liberty.

The earlier you find your calling, the sooner you can dedicate yourself to long-term study.

Note: Study is needed for any calling, be it temporal academic or otherwise. End note.

Few people work in the jobs they majored in in college unless it’s a specialized degree.

Make some contribution that will help people after you’re gone.

It takes 1,000 hours of work to gain competence in a field, 5,000 for mastery, and 10,000 to be a virtuoso.

Note: Sometimes these hours need to be in the night or early hours when all else is on pause, and sometimes this requires sacrifice. Sometimes it means taking a hit in another area, such as health. But life is more than meat. All times are hard times, and we must find the way to seek learning. C.S. Lewis has an essay titled Learning in Wartime, where he says those who really want to learn will do so even in wartime; that times have always been hard, and that people need to push past the basic needs of the day, or no progress will happen. End note.

Mises gives a comprehensive theory of how markets work. Rothbard learned from him and taught similar freedom principles.

More so than major intellectual contributions, Ron Paul feels his contribution is combining his job and his calling to promote Liberty.

Hayek (the great economist) said an intellectual is one who deals in secondhand ideas.

The internet helps people find others who represent their views and who articulate those views effectively. Facebook proves that birds of a feather flock together.

Note: Beyond scrolling peer threads, social media can be most useful for participating in topic-specific groups. Either way, we must keep these tools in their proper place, and not use them excessively. End note.

Principles are unchanging even though their application is always new.

Productivity is higher among law-abiding citizens than criminals.

Communists appeal to youthful idealism.

The war for K-12 education has been ongoing for over 180 years. Many parents don’t think the state should have a monopoly on K-12 education and pull their kids out of public schools.

Leaders should speak softly and not carry a big stick. It’s about exemplary leadership.

Note: There is a time and a place for an authority figure to exercise authority, but the basis of good government is to lead by example, give natural consequences, and execute justice. As the good book says, “he that ruleth over men must be just.” And a crime problem is a problem with under-enforcement of law. End note.

Part 2: A Strategy for Education Reform

Ch. 4: Family-Based Education

If you take the King’s shilling, you do the King’s bidding. Wherever there’s money given, there’s someone who gets to make the decisions.

Without school funding from the government, lots of teachers will need to be fired. Classroom ratios will go back to around 1:30 like they were in the 1950s.

People can’t decide on what the curriculum should be. The only thing they agree on is that it shouldn’t be Christian. So we have a population of mostly Christians who are funding schools that won’t teach Christianity.

Note: One begins to wonder how Christian a society is that doesn’t want a Christian education. I think no true Christian would dislike a Christian education for its youth. End note.

There’s no high school textbook critical of FDR’s New Deal – no high school textbook teaching history through the lens of Hayek and free market economics.

Note: It is a crying shame that things are presented so one-sided in the schools. The least they should do is show both sides. Since they refuse to do so, we now refuse to cooperate with them. End note.

Voluntary replacement is the most effective reform. Like how we’re making businesses that deliver mail better than the United States Postal Service – people don’t care that the USPS is slowly disappearing. The same is happening and needs to happen with the school systems. You can never defund the postal service by voting, and will never be able to defund the schools by voting. It has to happen the same way – by private, self-funded school programs beating the government schools.

The only way parents will get influence over their kids’ education is by paying for it. The age of accountability for a child to make their own decisions on these things is when they can pay for it themselves. Anytime someone offers something for free, it’s an attempt to gain more control.

Parents used to be able to influence what schools did because school funding was local – they could vote locally and control spending. Now funding is transferred to state and federal government, and parents have essentially no control.

There has long been a stigma over accepting charity as a failure to provide for yourself. But strangely there’s no such stigma when it comes to government paying for school.

There are a lot of educational materials at low cost and even free on the internet. The only limit is parents’ willingness to use them. There are better specialists on the internet than in the schools. The cost of these online materials keeps falling.

Note: This is a very exciting point. Whether it is free or cheap, the online resources arm an army of freedom lovers. Taking back education is easier than ever, and is the key to taking back our country, our families, and our faith. End note.

When parents understand the importance of proper education, they will sacrifice for their kids to get it, the same way they sacrifice to clothe, feed, and shelter their children.

The cost for a second parent to be in the workforce includes paying more in taxes and childcare, dealing with the boss, etc. You’re often just as well off having one parent at home. Further, there are ways to make money at home online while monitoring the children.

Parents have a moral responsibility to make sure everything in the textbooks their children are reading are correct. Most textbooks are incorrect because the liberal establishment has had control over them for a long time. Parents can find good, trustworthy teachers. Doing this in a homeschool setting is much easier than in the government school system.

Note: There are more and more Christian books teaching history, economics, science, and everything of importance. Beware using the popular books of the government schools. Do what it takes to ensure your children have Christian reading materials. We do not live in a Christian society anymore, we must be different! End note.

Ch. 5: Competition in Education

Textbooks never talk about how the government has monopolies and cartels. The K-12 school is a state subsidized system where costs are concealed. It’s unclear what the cost is for each individual child in the government schools. They limit open entry into the education market, lowering consumer choices. The state says people have to be protected by regulatory agencies because they can’t make decisions on their own based on businesses advertising, because of an inability to separate truth from fiction in those advertisements, yet the same type of advertisements appear at election cycles and people are expected to be able to discern truth from error in them. Whenever regulatory agencies get involved the prices go up and the choices consumers have go down. Producers who would have otherwise entered the market are forced to go into other markets which are less profitable than the restricted markets.

In the 1970s and ’80s there was intense opposition to homeschooling by the government. There should be no restrictions or punishments on parents who wish to homeschool and no restrictions on what curriculum they can use. Parents know best for kids’ education because they know the children the best. Why do we think bureaucrats should make decisions about this?

Note: Once some local homeschool mothers in my town, including my wife, were meeting at a park discussing their plans. Another local mother chanced by and expressed that she could never teach her kids, not being qualified. One of the brave mothers replied that this mother could in fact teach her kids, that as the mother of her child she is the most qualified. End note.

Chapter 6: Self-Instruction

Classroom instruction is an inefficient way of learning which people discontinue as soon as they can.

Reading is more efficient than listening to a lecture because you can do an overview of the material then go back and look for details and focus on parts that are important to you. You can take notes in the margins and other notes that you can refer to later.

Classroom instruction favors the least competent, and the gifted students get bored. The goal of education is to maximize the learning of every student in the class, and the best format for that is self-education. If a kid needs more time he can take more time, and he won’t be singled out and feel like the dummy.

Most students are ready to transition to self-education by 6th grade, often by 4^th for homeschooled students. When a student has the fundamental skills of reading (without moving his lips) and of writing (a brief summary of what he has read), he is ready to be in a self-instruction program. He can assess what he is reading and express it clearly in writing.

The key to being an efficient self-learner is the ability to read rapidly. Next, he needs to be able to understand what he’s reading. Third, he needs a way to help remember what he’s read. Fourth, he needs to be able to express himself in writing. Fifth, he needs to be able to verbally summarize what he has read and to integrate his recent readings with what he has read and learned over time.

The lecture style of education, where you sit and take notes, became insufficient in the 1400s when the printing press came out. Lecturing was based on a time when printed material was not easily accessible. A more efficient way to learn is by careful reading of a book and a video lecture, which can be paused and repeated. A lecture can be appropriate if it’s to a target audience, not to the lowest student in the class.

School should involve daily reading assignments, at least weekly writing assignments, and video lectures up to 25 minutes introducing material.

Note: I suggest incorporating writing into the daily exercises. If you’re not writing, you’re not learning. End note.

Don’t ask for high school classrooms to be small. Don’t ask for special attention for your high school age kid. By that age, they shouldn’t need any adult direction in their education. When they get to college, they’ll find out it’s a big difference when no one’s there to tell you to go to class.

The Socratic method of a professor and a small group of students meeting together to talk only works for the highest-level students.

Note: Often we try to push this method on the youngest and most unwilling groups of students, in both church and school. They would often learn much more with a more traditional education in these settings. End note.

To succeed in college students need to learn self-instruction, self-evaluation, and self-motivation. Leaders don’t need to return to teachers to master new information – they can make decisions quickly and effectively and accept the responsibility for those decisions. Classroom style learning will not make leaders.

Note: Ayn Rand has some good material in her books about true leadership and accepting the consequences of one’s choices rather than trying to play the ‘get out of responsibility’ game which is often enacted across the board. People without a vision of greatness will spend much of their career just trying to stay out of trouble rather than going out and building something great. End note.

Chapter 7: Online Education

Harvard and MIT have gone online, making their classes available free, proving that it’s effective. Paul lists some websites of colleges putting up free lectures.

Khan Academy is a non-profit for K-12 learning for everyone to have a free education. People donate to it.

The best professors’ lectures are being posted online, and those who refuse to post the lectures online will be suspected of having lower-quality material.

When a new technology is cheaper or more efficient, the old one goes away. Online teaching is the way of the future. It dramatically cuts costs. You can use recorded lectures to teach unlimited people and you just need low skilled people to help with some grading and comments.

Any teacher can make a textbook from Wikipedia articles. They are in the public domain. Wikipedia is the great encyclopedia.

Note: Wikipedia entries are sometimes overcomplicated and can have other issues like bias, but they’re still a good resource for what they are. Wikipedia is indeed a positive expression of human freedom. AI software now also allows us to create curriculum in the public domain easily, but also has its issues. End note.

Phoenix University online has tons of students and is one of the best.

For shop classes, local businesses can bring in students unpaid.

Note: Minimum wage laws have ruined many opportunities for people starting a new career, especially young people, to learn valuable skills and meet people in the industry of their choice. In the arena of school there still exists a little bit of opportunity to gain work experience in internships without requiring employers to pay unskilled workers high wages. The minimum wage laws have been a great detriment to practical education. End note.

Online schooling allows a student to have a part-time job and not have to deal with bullying, peer pressure, and drugs.

Note: A terrific point. We want school to be about school, not dangerous drama. Let’s do more of our socializing in local Christian community groups instead. End note.

It takes creativity, not money, to make a good curriculum.

Traditional college often leaves half of the kids dropping out and sacked with lots of debt, which hinders their marriage opportunities.

To pull off a revolution all you have to do is provide something better than what’s currently being used (remember the USPS analogy). All of the elite universities are affirming that online schooling works.

Note: Online school does have its drawbacks. Often the classes are lower quality. But they don’t have to be. One key is that if a student is just rushing through to get a degree and is unwilling to show real learning, their educational experience will be compromised significantly. Therefore, online programs need to require significant amounts of writing and other assessments which are thoroughly vetted by teachers and teacher assistants. Real competence must be demonstrated. Some do well with this; others do terribly. End note.

Khan Academy has trailblazed in the zero-tuition movement.

Note: Often public schools and charter schools advertise themselves as ‘tuition free,’ but they are far from it, being paid for by taxes. But there is a true ‘tuition free’ movement going on, and that is one of the most exciting things of our time. May many people join the movement, and consecrate their time and talents to bring quality education to all. End note.

One boy decided at 14 he was going to get his college degree at 18, and indeed he graduated at 18 with a bachelor’s degree in business, and he paid for it by using an inexpensive accredited school and mowing lawns. Toward the end, he borrowed a little money from his parents and paid it back within a year after graduating. Then he started a business showing other kids how to do what he did and having support groups for them.

Part 3: The Ideal School

Ch. 8: What Parents Want

Homeschooling is ideal because parents have the most choice in the curriculum, and can pick and choose which parts of a curriculum to use.

It’s rare that a parent will invent an entire curriculum, so online school is usually the best option.

The children have some say in the curriculum because they can choose whether or not to do it and how much work to put into it.

Students and parents can plan for college online, and this can shape the high school curriculum. There are many ways to get college credit during high school.

The longer a bureaucrat has been on a payroll, the less innovative he will be. He will say we ‘don’t do things that way here.’

The graduation rate for college students who begin as freshmen is about 50% because they don’t have the self-learning skills – they are used to being coddled.

Schooling is a recruiting process. For centuries, teachers have taken it upon themselves to rip the children from their parents’ worldview to get children to adopt their own views. Unlike government schools, in an online curriculum, the parents can monitor what’s being taught. A private school that shares the family’s values is rare and expensive, but it’s not so hard to find online.

CLAP exams give students college credit while in high school. This is a good way to see if the child is learning their stuff. Another good way for students to show actual learning is to have them write a weekly paper.

Most online homeschoolers test higher than public schoolers.

If a parent thinks a child needs more adult attention for a certain course, the parent can give that attention.

American literature should help reinforce American history. This is a general rule for history and literature classes. They should intermingle.

Ch. 9: What Students Need

One size doesn’t fit all with curriculum. Some kids want to go into liberal arts, others into science, others into a trade, and others to start a business, etc. By age 15, many kids will be mature enough to decide which path to take. Aptitude tests can help.

Note: For such decisions to be made at an early age, they need to be exposed to many types of work even earlier. Unfortunately, government schools often fail to expose youth to the working world, and their path is shadowed and hindered by the artificial school world. This is another reason almost everyone thinks the only path for a career is college, just more of the same school world. College has 2 years of entry-level courses before the student branches out into a chosen field, basically a continuation of basic training that should have already been accomplished. And for college to be effective, students need exposure to the working worlds to know what to do in college anyway, not just seeing everything from the school point of view. Yes, there can be academic careers, but these are but one of the many paths. End note.

Public schools have proven themselves to be unable to deal with bullying. They’re also drug rings. They’re also full of busy work that leaves students feeling cheated.

Note: As Joel Skousen points out, perhaps the biggest issue with public schools, even more than teaching incorrect things, is the toxic attitudes peers pick up from one another. It is a culture of children who disrespect authority and have out-of-control attitudes that parents have failed to discipline. It is almost impossible for children to be immersed in this environment and not be immensely negatively affected by these toxic attitudes. We simply live in a permissive era where children learn that they should get whatever they want, not have to work, and that parents and other authority figures are wrong. They are further taught that the religious teachings they receive at home are outdated and unenlightened, even though it’s the secular Marxist ideas they hear at school that are outdated and unenlightened. End note.

12 skills every high school curriculum should teach:

Most people don’t know how to read quickly. It’s not taught in schools. You have to know which parts to go over fast and which parts to go slow on.
Writing is essential, so students should be required to write weekly essays. Students should set up a blog where their weekly writing assignments are posted, so improvement can be seen over time and others can see their work.
Public speaking is important. For one reason, it helps solidify knowledge. And teaching others is a great way to learn.
Students should learn to use digital media like WordPress, YouTube, etc.
Students need to learn how to do rapid research. Less schools require writing and research papers but many still do. Students should be prepared in this. It takes a lot of time to get kids to write research papers so they’ve been deemphasized in school, but this cheats the students.
Young students should learn time management skills. It allows them to go into college and business maximizing their time.
Learning goal setting is not taught in school but it’s even more important than time management. Around age 12 students should master this. Set lifetime goals. It will guide the school years.
More important than goal setting is distinguishing between the job and the life calling. The life calling being the most important thing a person could do, the thing in which they would be most difficult to replace. In most cases a student has to be proficient in two areas, in his job to put food on the table and in his calling where he obtains his legacy and significance in life, typically not tied to monetary compensation.
Effective study techniques need to be learned around 7th grade. Most schools don’t teach it.
Math is becoming more and more important in today’s world. Statistics are increasingly used in social science and history. Most math teachers aren’t good teachers and aren’t good at motivating kids in math. You need a systematic curriculum like Khan Academy.
Students should be able to self-pace. In courses they’re good at, they should be able to race ahead without slow students holding them back. They should be able to review lectures and meetings as many times as they need to master the material. Students need to learn to be competitive. Public schools emphasize self-esteem but not based on performance, so it’s self-defeating. Barely competent and incompetent students are led to think that they are competent. Students need to be able to compare their output with the output of their fellow students. This is where students producing YouTube videos and a WordPress blog can be helpful. Students can compare how they’re doing to others in the same program. Comparison doesn’t have to be done by grades, but there does need to be competition so they can look at what the skilled students are doing.

Note: A culture of leveling everyone’s performance into one lump is truly toxic. Such a culture continuously brings standards down, and is dehumanizing, leading us to become much less than we otherwise could. The mark of a good school is excellence in academics and character. In many ways these two are related. To attain excellence, we must be willing to make comparisons. As Jesus said, we must allow people to hold up their light for all to see. This doesn’t mesh well with the politically correct culture of ‘not judging.’ Jesus’ instructions about judging have been completely twisted these days, and the downfall of civilization is the result. Academic and moral depravity are close cousins that come together. Thus we can say that a school which doesn’t use comparison and standards of excellence is, in a way, evil. End note.

Note: The same applies to homes – the home isn’t a place for idleness either. The ‘nice’ parents who let their kids indulge in every vanity the child wishes for are really not so nice after all. True niceness can only be found in the context of high expectations – otherwise you’re dealing in neglect. End note.

Note: In the schools there is also a trend to get rid of special education classes for lower functioning students and to mix them in with the regular classrooms. The more we merge all levels of students into one group, the less they can have customized instruction and excel from where they are. There is a movement now to treat all classrooms like special education (lower functioning) classrooms. There is a movement to give children permanent levels which we pretend are ‘diagnosis,’ and to blame all of their incompetence on biological inheritance and malfunction, without giving any attention to how they were trained. End note.

The best teaching is in the form of tutorials, students teaching other students. Students a year ahead of others can teach them. Teaching helps solidify knowledge and improves communication skills. Struggling students have a better chance of understanding when there’s several piers who can explain it in different ways. Self-teaching is the best way to learn anything, but when you hit a brick wall and you need some help, peer tutoring is a good way to get it. The older student is less dependent, and he should be one of the teachers. The closer a college student is to a PhD, the less support he gets from teachers. It’s actually a disservice to a student to have a low student-teacher ratio in high school because it doesn’t prepare them for college; it coddles them and doesn’t teach self-learning – it teaches reliance on a teacher.

Ch. 10: What Colleges Want

Aristophanes wrote a comedy called The Clouds about the well-known thing of teachers trying to brainwash students away from what their parents taught them.

It’s better to do online college – you don’t have to pay for housing, textbooks, etc.

The first two years of college don’t need to be on campus. That’s where colleges make most of their money, so they try to get you to go, but in those first two years the freshmen students are taught by graduate students who have no experience in teaching.

It’s a matter of public record that there’s almost no student improvement in the first two years of college. CLEP exams and DSST exams allow students to finish the first two years at home during high school. They can even have a part-time job.

Since 2008 it’s been hard for people with college degrees to find jobs. Most of the time they get into jobs that don’t require degrees. It’s only worth it if you’re going to be an engineer. 17 million Americans with degrees are doing jobs that require less schooling than their degree.

Most colleges will accept homeschool students so long as they can pass basic entrance exams. Trends in this area are improving.

11: The Ron Paul curriculum

His curriculum is designed for the top 20%, not the kids that have to be nagged by parents or teachers to do their work. It’s aimed at making people into leaders.

The best way to help a child become self-taught is to require regular writing assignments where they have to analyze material and write about it in a weekly or daily essay. They will learn the basics of analytical reasoning and writing before reaching high school if they do this. Top students can self-educate by 4th grade.

A curriculum should have different tracks for people who want to specialize in different things. A business track. A social science humanities track. A natural science track. A fine arts track.

The social studies track is a detailed analysis of Western civilization, not the popular political stuff in social studies mainstream.

The different tracks have different literature support that tracks focus.

Literature should be about the social theory fundamental concepts such as God, man, law, time, causation.

Greeks and Romans focused on politics but Hebrews and the early Christians focused on family, economics, land ownership, and ecclesiastical hierarchy.

Having students go public with their writings on a blog or YouTube videos encourages them to do a good job. It also serves to ward off truant officers and shows employers that you are intelligent.

Assign (at minimum) a weekly 250-word essay.

In math they can write about and make videos about frequently asked questions, and tutorials other students can use.

Get kids involved in ideological conflicts and they’ll be involved throughout their lives.

Turning the weekly essay into a video helps them in public speaking. The video can be summarizing their essay, etc.

If you lie down with dogs, you get fleas. The moral environment of a school is far more important than the academic environment.

Since 1840 parents have thought that they can get together and reform the public schools. It hasn’t been working well and in recent decades it hasn’t been working at all.

In 1980 there was a trickle of homeschool curriculum materials, now there is a flood.

Whenever a child is removed from the public school, it reduces their funding, catching their attention and encouraging them to change.

By high school a student should be 98% self-taught.

Regular writing assignments and arithmetic worksheets will eventually get the kids very skilled.

Note: Many math classrooms simply don’t give enough practice. Sufficient amounts of homework should be assigned to require students to work through the concepts they need to master and show that they have mastered the skill. Math books these days have too many words and not enough numbers. In Japan their math textbooks are much thinner and more efficient, and the Japanese students far exceed the Americans in math. End note.

People often say youth need to learn social skills at school. By that do they mean learning how to turn down drug dealers politely?

Note: The schools are simply not good places to learn good social skills. They were once, but no longer. Now responsible parents can stand up and make more wholesome communities for their youth where possible. End note.

Many youth would prefer their socializing to be at a part-time job and community service.

A child’s part-time job can pay for the college that they can do during high school.

Homeschool brings more physical safety, moral safety, and ideological safety. Intense peer pressure makes children miserable, and the left-wing ideological textbook writers can’t be trusted.

Homeschooled children score about 72 points higher in the SAT than public schooled children.

Homeschooling parents are less likely to divorce. Homeschool kids watch less television. The home environment is dramatically better than the government school environment, and kids perform better academically at home.

Most upscale congressman don’t send their kids to public schools.

Homeschool parents can pay to have their children tested annually (see the book for suggestions).

High school students should be able to complete work and research without being nagged. Good curriculum will teach students how to learn. When students are taught from elementary age to teach themselves, it’s not only better for the student, but it reduces the amount of parent instruction time required.

Homeschooling families are well connected and fanatical about defending their right to homeschool. They call their congressmen, etc.

In the 1980s, homeschoolers were brought to trial only to find evidence they were learning more than public schoolers. The state doesn’t want more embarrassment like this, so now they don’t bring the homeschoolers to trial.

Public schools cost over $10,000 per student per year, whereas homeschool is under $500 per year and often much less. You can get curriculum packages for a few hundred dollars a year per family.

Some of Ron Paul’s Favorite Websites

CampaignforLiberty.com

LewRockwell.com

Mises.org

RonPaulInstitute.org

RonPaulChannel.com

RonPaulCurriculum.com (email paulcurriculum@aweber.com)

TeaPartyEconomist.com

TomWoods.com

Richardson Studies

Defending the Religious Worldview

Opportunities for Home Schooling for Superior Education & Character – Highlights & Commentary on Ron Paul’s School Revolution

Preface & Introduction