At 09:36 PM 9/17/96 -0800, Adamsc wrote:

It has always seemed somewhat amusing that we will have a) a widespread opinion that homeschooling is of lesser value and b) numerous studies, surveys, testimonials, reports, etc, that show what a rotten job public education is doing*. This raises the question of how anyone even remotely concerned with their children's welfare could do worse. . . Yet another unexplained mass insanity.

'Gubmint Skools one of the most common forms of child abuse in America today. Luckily, the same contradictions in the Stalinist methods of production that brought the old SU to its knees are working their wonders on Education as well. Expect it to die from the top as tertiary education is seduced away by the cash derived from selling its wares over the Net. Then with the Web easing Primary and Secondary education at home and the schools worsening, more people will opt out. They will be further encouraged as the schools become the nexus for ever tighter regulation of family and personal life. After all, teachers, nurses, and social workers, work on and with their "charges" to uncover, child abusers, illegal aliens, substance abusers and who knows what all among the parents. The schools also keep loads of records on their "customers." Those who have never turned their kids over to the government for brain massage, find that they have many fewer run ins with the authorities. They also find that their kids are more likely to be able to infer, imply, and know the difference between the two. DCF