Schools were designed by Horace Mann and Barnas Sears and W.R. Harper of the University of Chicago and Edward Thorndike of Columbia Teachers College and other to be instruments for the scientific management of a mass population. Schools are intended to produce, through the application of formulas, formulaic human beings whose behavior can be predicted and controlled.

John Taylor Gatto
NYC's Teacher of the Year, 1989

If public education truly created a thinking citizenry, it would be outlawed.

Arne wants CEOs to run schools. Arne wants 15-year-olds to save the economy. Arne grasps desperately at gravitas.

I want a dying republic to toss off the corporate crap. I want my kids to learn how to think. Mostly, I just want to teach science.

Not technology. Not engineering. Not complaisance.

I want assertive, thinking, engaged children who will tell me (eloquently, I hope) to fuck off once they're ready to remove their training wheels.

Democracy is dangerous. Thinking is dangerous. Public education should be dangerous as well.

(Yes, I've gone over the edge into full crank mode--if I don't find a crocus soon....)