The result is an explosive mixture of nihilism, narcissism, ignorance, and resentment. The federal Department of Education operates no schools, and educates no children. Public schooling in this country got along just fine for more than a century before the department was created in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter. By turning schools into virtual prisons and tools of social control, says Dr. Szasz, we've created environments that breed boredom and frustration and are bound to drive a small percentage to violent acts. The presumption in America today is that our children belong to the state.
American history is taught as a sorry record of injustice and oppression of minorities.
The diversity of human thought and experience is reduced to a set of crude variations on the theme of racial, ethnic, class, gender and homophobic bigotry. It's generally agreed that American primary, secondary and, increasingly, undergraduate education is a failure. But that assessment depends upon just what evaluation criteria is chosen. The harsh truth about the subversion of the nation s schools has not been a Democrat or Republican program. It has occurred no matter who was in office or who controlled Congress.