This essay was written for the Harper's Magazine forum, "School on a Hill." John Taylor Gatto discusses how public education cripples our kids and why.

There is a national campaign to institutionalize all preschoolers through government funded and/or mandated "universal preschool." This group seeks to redefine universal preschool as an unheralded worldwide community of loving, functional parents who exercise their right and authority to nurture and teach their young children at home.

Over two thousand years ago, Socrates told us that if someone started charging money for teaching the youth things that are well known to virtually every adult in the society, it would be fraud. Today, that fraud is well established in our country. Schooling has been taken over and adulterated by government for political purposes and enforced by laws of compulsion. It has been corrupted by teacher unions that keep well educated people out of the public schools by requiring the teachers to be not only "certified" but union members. Those requirements guarantee that only mediocre caliber people will work in the government-run schools.

The first step in understanding the state of education today is to review how government came to be the dominant force behind schooling in the United States. From the outset of the first settlements in the New World, Americans founded and successfully maintained a decentralized network of schools through the 1850s. Then, beginning in New England, a wave of change swept across the country, which soon saw states quickly abandoning the original American model of decentralized, private education in favor of government-funded and operated schools.

Children naturally love to learn. They want to know everything. "Daddy, why is the sky blue?" "Why can't I see my back?" "Why are those dogs doing that?" "Are we there yet?" And so on and so on. Then we send them to school. And all desire to learn is methodically destroyed. Many of today's citizens are products of the schools of the last twenty years, during which time the trend has been to adopt a more and more socialistic posture. Most teachers have never spent their lives anywhere except in classrooms, and their vision of the world is so much at odds with the real world of business and industry as to be virtually a different society.

Just suppose for a minute that in addition to our education, government officials suddenly took it into their heads to control what we eat? Some of the big wigs figured that we common ignorant folk were not capable of making good nutritious meals, so they formed a plan and with a huge chunk of our tax dollars, built government run cafeterias (Food Distribution Centers). Sound depressing? Well, take heart, because the American people would never stand for anyone telling them what they can and cannot eat. But wait a minute....isn't this exactly the approach the government has taken with education?

Our educational systems today are based on government coercion. The fact that the student body is a captive audience frees educators from any urgent need to satisfy the wishes of their clientele. Pupils cannot "vote" with their feet; parents cannot "vote" with their tax dollars.

Isn't it amazing how many five year olds go off to school as bright, curious, trusting ("gifted and talented") kids, and in a year or two become dull, angry little aliens? Parents who expect the government schools to provide high quality academic education for smart children will always be frustrated. It's simply not offered. Those parents need to understand that the public schools are intended to offer only a minimum level of academic learning -- nothing more. In fact, the employees are not even academically oriented beyond the minimum level.

The nasty scrap inside California's process for picking its public school textbooks shows why publishers and educrats must share some of the blame for poor test results.

A veteran teacher talks about her experience as a substitute teacher. Full of anecdotes, this article illustrates the state of classrooms today. She concludes that if she had school aged children, she would not place them in public schools, but would choose to homeschool them.

When it comes to the books we read, the neighbourhood we live in, the religion or philosophy we practise, the food we eat, the people we associate with, in fact, in most areas of our lives, we highly value our freedom of choice. Yet, when it comes to one of our most precious resources--our children--parents are not permitted to exercise this necessary freedom. State interference with and control of education is greater than it is in almost any other area of personal choice.

It is sometimes said, by public school supporters, that if some children are taken out of the system to go to other schools, the public schools will deteriorate. And so, the thinking goes, parents have a "duty to society" to keep their kids in the public schools, even though they have already deteriorated almost beyond recognition. How absurd that the government schools think of the children as serving the schools' or society's needs instead of the other way around. It's not the school system that needs saving, or even reforming. It's the children who need to escape from the failing government schools and be allowed to home school or attend successful private schools, without the penalty of paying twice -- once with taxes and again for tuition.

Parents who homeschool their children have three basic complaints against public schools: the lack of academic rigor, the number of maladjusted graduates, and the anti-religious atmosphere. Homeschool advocates claim that homeschooling overcomes these problems. They argue that no matter whether the educational philosophy one holds is that schooling prepares for life or schooling is life, the homeschooled do better. Proponents also claim that private schools are nearly always similar to public schools, so the fundamental criticisms of public schools apply to private schools also, although to a lesser degree. There are two ways to look at the arguments for homeschooling: by personal case histories and by scholarly analysis. Although the true merit of homeschooling probably is best told as a series of case histories, this paper will examine the many studies done on various aspects of homeschooling.

Do the public school authorities feel threatened by homeschooling? Judging by their efforts to lure homeschooling families into dependence on local school districts, the answer is apparently yes. For the last several years, homeschooling has been the fastest growing educational alternative in the country. The sheer number of homeschoolers represent a distinct threat to the hegemony of the government school monopoly. Qualitatively, the academic success of homeschoolers, measured by standardized test scores and recruitment by colleges, debunk the myth that parents need to hire credentialed experts to force children to learn.

Beverly K. Eakman explains how, as a teacher, she saw that public schools are places where bad ideas are legitimized. She discusses the evolution of educational policy thought and the psychologizing of the educating process. This is a fascinating look at the state of the educational system today.