Agreed. The school yard bully stops taking your lunch money when you bloody his nose.

Frightening already frightened children teaches them nothing. If you can't find a way to appeal to someone with reason then you are wasting your time.

If someone is hopelessly anti-reason then you can't reach him at all. Hyperbole, exaggeration and fear mongering will not help him and is no way to spread a rational philosophy. The most influence that can have is a temporary change in policy on some specif issue on the way down.

Ayn Rand didn't have a cop out. The Valley in Atlas Shrugged was never intended as a place to escape to and she did not advocate that. The plot shows what happens to human existence when the mind is withdrawn (from the outer world in the plot). A Valley is not a practical means of an alternate civilized existence or a way to reform society without changing the dominant ideas.

You have not "joined the moochers" by living in the only world there is. You still live in spite of them.

Catholic schools can be much better academically, or at least used to be, but there is a real danger in focusing only on that aspect because there is much more involved that influence students at a deep psychological level. Catholicism inculcates a religious metaphysics and a duty mentality in ethics (and may or may not also have the government mentality that you already see mixed in with the rest). Adults who were brought up with that (but usually also starting at an earlier age) and who are, for example, later interested in Ayn Rand's philosophy often have a difficult time understanding it and assimilating it as a natural way of thinking and reacting because of earlier emotionally ingrained premises that are difficult to shake free from. Without Ayn Rand's ideas it is much harder. It's much safer to look for a good school not inflicted with the underlying psychological dogma. Try asking the Van Damme private school in California for advice.

You seem to have misunderstood the problem of her teacher's reaction to the experiment with boiling water. She set up a simple experiment "to demonstrate that water boils at different temperatures with an addition of salt". The teacher did not understand the experiment. "The teacher gave her a 'C' because, the teacher said, 'everyone knows that water boils at 100 deg C'." As simple and primitive as the experiment was, the student was ahead of the teacher, leaving the student with no way of understanding the next educational step that scientific principles require explanation and generalization beyond simply observing a physical experiment.

The problem with teaching Kwanza with Christmas as no better is that it is multiculturalist egalitarian ethnicity versus an American individualist joyous and mostly secular holiday. They are pushing ethnicity over the American sense of life to children who cannot possibly understand the philosophical implications but who are being taught wrong values inculcated for life.

Green propaganda does start early. The climate hysteria pushed in schools is now down to the lowest grades in the form of pure propaganda with posters and slogans pushed on children who cannot possibly understand the issues, let alone the political and scientific controversy. Rejecting the climate hysteria movement blaming natural climate cycles on industry while packaging it with the concept of harmful pollution is not like "creationism". The viros "proving" their enviro-chondria by contriving "experiments" to demonstrate what they accept on faith is like creationism.

The same goes for the rest of environmentalist ideology and it's "mother earth" imagery denigrating private land use, development and industry. On top of that the children are being inculcated with the belief that the emotionalism and dogma of the viros represents "science" before the children can appreciate what science is and what it requires. The whole notion of indoctrinating the idea of sacrificing human values to nature as a supreme value is misanthropic, nihilistic, and pre-science, yet it is being inculcated at the emotional level that is very difficult to break out of later in an uphill battle, surrounded by society that shares the same religious belief.

"You have not seen them teaching Climate Change, Carbon Impact, White hate, or denounce male sexuality as dangerous?"
We have both taught them about climate change and carbon impact. I don't know what white hate is, but I'm almost sure they haven't.

Regarding sexuality, they do have a social worker who teaches them to report sexual molestation to the school. They have a lot of troubled neighborhoods feeding into the school, and I think they're honestly trying to help legitimately troubled people. I don't think there's anything Orwellian about it. They teach them stranger danger, which I think is wrong. Strangers are good. Play in the park and turn to strangers for help. Just never ever go off alone with a stranger b/c bad guys hide. You're more likely to encounter a creep at a friend's house than out at the park.

So I am not satisfied with the way they teach the kids to avoid child molesters.

"Do you review your kids books/lessons?"
Yes, and we ask them probing questions. It's still possible they slip stuff in that we miss.

"In just over a year, she should have 2 degrees, both from Honors Colleges. (While Ice skating, Yoga (or Tai Chi), Student Government, etc)."
I admire that, but I see so many parents pushing their kids. She's old enough to decide for herself if she's in college. It's her life. I hope my kids have similar accomplishments, but also hang out with others, watch some TV, go to msg board like this, smoke some pot, or whatever.

Teacher says: "So Trump doesn't believe in Global Warming"
People are wrong in this world. I think this teacher is wrong. I think President Trump knows that scientific opinion says global warming is caused by human activities and will be costly, but his focus is getting people fired up. He doesn't care. He's not trying to comprehend science. Future generations will indeed play the price for our failing to act quickly to address global warming. I would be frustrated by a class giving any time to crackpot global warming denier theories, but within reason you have to tolerate people being wrong about stuff.

"If your kids are getting a decent education... why move them out? "
1) I'm concerned in older grades the behavior issues are worse and the teacher can't even kick the kids out of the classroom.
2) I think formal instruction at early ages is mostly socialization and learning to go to a place on time and deal with different people. At this age they really need to play more. As they get older, they need more sitting and studying, but at ages 7 and 9, it's more about playing with other kids and learning to resolve minor disagreements on their own. I am very deeply concerned with their schools philosophy that a teacher should resolve all disputes and they should never have even the most minor issue with other students. This is a red flag that makes me think we'll need to take them out at some point.
3) I sense a bureaucratic mentality that I don't like.

The kids urge us not to take them out, though. I probably won't take them out of a school they get up and say they're happy to go to.

Interesting. You have not seen them teaching Climate Change, Carbon Impact, White hate, or denounce male sexuality as dangerous?

Do you review your kids books/lessons? (I always reviewed what me daughter was learning, she took her SAT when she was 11, so she might have been a little ahead of the curve, but I taught her to question things, to strive for understanding/mastery, not A's.) I started reviewing things in Kindergarten, and was surprised by second grade. In just over a year, she should have 2 degrees, both from Honors Colleges. (While Ice skating, Yoga (or Tai Chi), Student Government, etc).

She said the tactic she hates most is when the teacher "Throws out" some comment, making clear her beliefs, but also clear that it is NOT to be challenged (e.g. "So Trump doesn't believe in Global Warming, because he can't comprehend simple science, and we are all going to pay the price for his ignorance... Moving on..." And then starts the lecture. BTW, in an unrelated business class!).

This is at a University, of course. NOT every teacher, but too many of them. She says the more tech/mathy the classes are, the far less this happens, which she finds interesting.

Anyways... If your kids are getting a decent education... why move them out? I refused to private school our daughter, and I am glad I did not. Education starts at home. If we can tweak what she really takes away, WHILE teaching her to do the same for herself... She will not be prepared, otherwise.

" it was somewhat of a shocker to see the apparent results of public education of the 60's and 70's."
I understand what you mean, but I think it has more to do with that particular group than public education in the US.

"I was so appalled by what I saw that I immediately removed my children from the public school. "
My wife says, half jokingly, that that point is coming for us.

"the most egregious evil, is the one of omission"
I have not seen them pervert the 2nd Amendment, but I agree they completely steer clear of it-- an evil of omission, as you say. We have to teach them. When it comes to gun rights, maybe the best thing we can do is teach them to shoot and use guns responsibly, so they won't believe stereotypes about guns. That's not the same as teaching the Constitutional issue, but it's one important thing.

"everyone knows that water boils at 100 deg C."
Is that bad? I do not know. I think they want you to come up with a hypothesis, like less ionic things affect boiling point less. I always found it hard b/c for a HS science project, you will be replicating others' research no matter what.

"No, they don't [teach the relative merits of holidays]. And that is the problem"
I am confused. I don't think the notion of holidays among different religions having relative merits makes sense. It almost sounds like something my 7 y/o would come up with: Which is better Easter, Yom Kippur, or Ramadan?

"Everyone gets a participation trophy. If only the real world was so generous."
This is a real problem. I don't know what to do about it. I don't find it generous or un-generous but just wrong. My kid plays all kinds of sports, but the adults can't admit which team won. That's crazy. At least the kids know.
Not keeping score would be just a little quirk, but it's part of a larger trend of trying to protect kids from even the most trivial disappointments.

"Get a 6 digit micro-aggression counter "
I know. I want to protect them from real use of force. If I didn't know any better, I would think you just want to tolerate bullying, but I don't think that's the case. We've gone overboard calling all kinds of normal behavior bullying.

" No doubt that we all know that the Green-Green propaganda starts early."
We haven't seen this. They teach the facts about human activities causing global warming and other changes to environment that will be costly to humans, but at least from what they tell me they never teach them "mother Earth" is more important than people.

"The preaching of sharing, donations, food drives, the evils of unequal distribution"
I don't want the school to teach it, but I think giving voluntarily to the poor is generally a good thing, but I don't like the way the school asks for food. Use MONEY. And I completely agree it should be money from their piggy bank that they earned through work. And if they don't want to, that's totally fine. I think giving to charity is a good thing, but it's not a moral thing where you're bad if you don't want to.

BTW, they share all the school supplies. I can't stand that. It has a real communist feel to it. I encourage them to flout the policy and keep their own stash of supplies and share only when they feel the desire to.

"[One side of a conversation being allowed is ] most evident on the subject of the environment and Global Warming. "
I think there only is one side. The evidence says what it says, and talking about "sides" is a rhetorical trick by people who want to deny the problem, similar to creationists saying "at least teach the controversy." There is no controversy.

"we have 17 year-old's being bused across the road "
I know. It's INSANE! I see insanity. I see kids who are at an age when my wife was a crossing guard with a badge who now literally cannot go behind a tree out of sight of an adult, who literally cannot cross a street even with an adult Madison Police Dept crossing guard!! It's no wonder they need "comfort flufflies" to deal with life in their 20s.

"almost half said that it was to assign/distribute jobs, salaries, work and income."
Damn. They're only 12, so it was not too late. Hopefully some of them rolling their eyes at you remembered something of what you said. They're 32 now. Maybe some of them remembered something you said in response that may have sounded like a rant at the time.

I started public school in Madison, WI. I went to public middle school in Tampa, FL. Our kids are in Madison schools very close to where my wife and went. I like the teachers, but I am worried about the safety obsession. It has a rule-following element to it that I don't like. I in no way think it's a government plot. Its more of a gov't mentality: Show up, follow the rules, do the process as directed by your boss, retire early.
Some of the teachers are really good. They also say they like it. But we'll probably move them to Catholic school, even though we're atheists, for high school, maybe middle school.

I'm 65 and after reading your lists...I thankfully missed all of that and more.
By comparison, I almost learned truth...only I was too hyper and bored to tears to pay much attention...but, believe it or not, I did better in college as if all that didn't matter and had a AS degree before my high school class graduated...laughing...all because of a chick I liked a lot.
Go Figure.

Well said. Much of this discussion has wandered over to the idiocracy that is the American education system. For whatever reasons that industry has come to be owned by below average (in intelligence and related dynamics) people -- the average teacher has an IQ of 85, placing him/her in the bottom 16 or so percent of American population). If we want to fix it (what passes for education) we need to stop hiring professional teachers. I suggest recruiting educators from the vast number of "early retirees" (such as retiring milittary, police and state/federal agency personnel. They have actually done something (where led people/organizations, been engineers or whatever and they still have a good 20 years of work life in 'em. Oh, yeah they have IQ's in the average or higher range. Additionally, as most already have some kine of pension they don't "need" the job, so they are less likely to commit stupid when ordered to do so.

I am 53 and grew up in Manhattan. My parents were scared of public schools. There were a few good ones, like Stuyvesant, but the regular schools were drug infested rat cages. Manhattan offered some choices (my sister went to Art and Design, a very good school back then). We now live in semi-rural VA, which offers no choices; just garbage, for which I am forced to pay.

Then that confirms my suggestion that if we are to talk to them at all, do not talk facts. Speak their language - fear mongering, exaggeration, hyperbole, fantasies. We are wasting our efforts when presenting facts - that is a language that they cannot understand.

That is the whole point - they are unwilling or incapable of dealing with facts and reality. Like Marx, they believe that human nature is different from what it is or that it can be commanded to be different. And healthcare, to them, is a Constitutional Right. No, seriously, a Constitutional Right, as part of the Pursuit of Happiness. Only instead of the Pursuit, they expect Deliverance.

CircuitGuy, I must say that it is rare when anyone nowadays engages in a detailed discussion – I appreciate it very much. So, in order not to miss this opportunity, I take upon myself to answer some of the points above. Some, because we've all had somewhat different experiences, being of different ages and growing up in different areas. I grew up in the '70's and 80's and went to private schools, so, as I wrote in the original comment, it was somewhat of a shocker to see the apparent results of public education of the 60's and 70's. I did have children in public schools in this past decade, so that part I am well aware of, to the point of pulling them out and home schooling for several years and then sending them to study in Israel. I would also add, that as opposed to most other parents that belong to their PTA's and have regular discussions with the teachers, I have actually sat in classes during lessons. I was so appalled by what I saw that I immediately removed my children from the public school. Now, to the individual points:

Constitution – the current version, very lightly studied, in some instances within the public school system, has been intentionally perverting the Second Amendment (http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/.... But the most egregious evil, is the one of omission – very lightly studied.

Prayer – I went to private schools which had prayers. I completely agree that they do not belong in public schools.

"Learning is about regurgitating what the teacher wants to hear" – I don't know if this "feature" is by design or simply the result of ever growing incompetence of the teachers. I can present one example that speaks volumes (happened to my coworker). His daughter, in HS, was doing a science project. She set up an experiment to demonstrate that water boils at different temperatures with an addition of salt (this should have been an elementary school project in my days). The teacher gave her a "C" because, the teacher said, "everyone knows that water boils at 100 deg C." And if your kid even attempts to question "Global Warming," the teachers will literary foam at the mouth and your kid will be public enemy number one. Tried that already; it would have been fun to watch, if it wasn't so tragic.

"We obscure things in nomenclature " - that applies to everything the Party does; this is not specific to schools. Like the Affordable Care Act, the Democratic Republic of North Korea, institutions of higher learning, etc. They're good at it.

"Kwanza OVER Christmas" - I am certain they don't teach some holidays as being superior to others. - No, they don't. And that is the problem. When everything is equally good, then nothing is good.

No Child Gets ahead - There's nothing like that. No Child Left Behind is exactly the same as no child gets ahead. By definition. Do we even need to discuss it? And "No Winners: All Losers" proves the point. Everyone gets a participation trophy. If only the real world was so generous.

No bullying – At first glance, what parent wouldn't want to protect their child from bullies? But what will these children, after they reach the age of 26 and start venturing out on their own from their parents' basements, do when they face the real world? Get a 6 digit micro-aggression counter and run back into the basement? After all, they would have never learned to deal with bullies and wouldn't know how to survive without a nearby safe-space.

Time Magazine Weekly Reader (How to calculate your carbon footprint) – No doubt that we all know that the Green-Green propaganda starts early. This is a self-evident issue for anyone that has kids in school. As I said above, causes the teachers to foam at the mouth at any attempt to challenge it.

How Capitalism Destroys – Oh, yeah! The preaching of sharing, donations, food drives, the evils of unequal distribution – starting in kindergarten. I've cleansed my kids' brains on this subject very early. When they came home asking me to donate to their class causes, I graciously offered them to make the donations themselves – from their piggy banks. That stopped it cold.

Only ONE side of a conversation is REALLY allowed.- I don't know what this means. - Most evident on the subject of the environment and Global Warming. Whenever facts are absent, the teachers get nervous and cut off the conversation. That I've seen multiple times. Wouldn't be surprised if that includes Common Core math.

You have rightfully mentioned safety as another issue. Back when I was 10 years old, I rode the city bus across half of Manhattan to go to school. Now, we have 17 year-old's being bused across the road and the traffic stopped in both direction while the imbeciles walk home. No wonder they're still adulting at 36!

About 20 years ago I taught a Civics class in a public school in St. Louis. 8th grade. The classroom walls were completely covered with posters on two subject, exclusively - slavery and outstanding Black Americans (most long dead). About a third did not know who their fathers were and on the subject of the role of the government, almost half said that it was to assign/distribute jobs, salaries, work and income. Naturally, the results couldn't have been different.

How old are you? Roughly where are you from?
And when did your private school start? (You can't compare a private school to the public schools fairly, IMO. Their teachers can be fired. We had only a few good ones. The really good ones moved to nicer neighborhoods!)

I was about 35 miles outside of Detroit, in a relatively poor school district. But most of the schools were the same, and got worse over time.

But the lettered stuff was witnessed here in South Florida.

I believe two words explain this: cognitive dissonance. Google "Scott Adams cognitive dissonance" and you'll find a wealth of ideas. I'm 64 and have been libertarian since age 15 and, until I read Scott Adams' ideas on this, other than Keirsey's and Myers-Briggs work on Thinking-Feeling, none of this made sense. Combine the two, and we can make sense of most (but not all) such non-thinking. Add alcohol and other-drug addiction into the equation, due to distortions of perception and memory fueling egomania, I think it's all comprehensible, even if it's illogical.

Whenever one is forced (or has the opportunity) to deal with "progressives" you must remember almost every term they will use they will avoid (refuse to) defining, thought they will use it as if it means exactly the opposite of the accepted (i.e. "dictionary") meaning. "progressive," of course, means to act to REGRESS society to when some elite (king, queen, prince, warlord, etc.) told everyone else (aka peasants, serfs) what to do. "Fair" is some exceptionally unbalanced relationship between inputs and outputs. "Justice," likewise, disconnects behavior and consequences (I won't continue but urge everyone with an example to share).
I guess I would have asked what the goals of the leader/participants were? Did they want everyone to have access to quality healthcare? Then eliminating bureaucracy would be helpful; having a huge deductible system (again minimizing interference between patient and doctor, Almost every "answer" they propose has tons of data noting such has the opposite effect from what is stated as the goal (O-care resulted in huge premium increases, unaffordable deductibles, reductions in the numbers of healthcare providers available. Urge them to follow the data and ignore what they want reality to be. The laws of human behavior are pretty simple and straightforward and look nothing like what the typical politician believes they look like.

Where is this? My wife, I, and my kids all have had a very normal experience with the public schools compared to this. Normal isn't great, but I saw almost none of this bizarre stuff except for C and D. I saw a little #6 from private school.
1) Constitution - It was presented without comment on how it should be interpreted. We learned it was important but not much about what's in it.
2+3) Judges applying moral norms or judges being apolitical - We just learned about "checks and balances" of three branches. I heard no comment on moral norms.
4) Prayer - I learned the gov't can't establish a religion, but I never saw any sign of someone wanting to pray and being told no or someone in the school wanting to lead a prayer, which would obviously be totally inappropriate.
5) " You cant fight City Hall " - I remember learning the exact opposite. Maybe I had particularly progressive teachers, but I actually remember learning about people who protested and changed society for the better.
6) "your future can be DESTROYED by these people" - I didn't see any of this until I was at private school. They taught that your "high school career" was key to success in life.
7) "Learning is about regurgitating what the teacher wants to hear" - I remember hearing "don't read and regurgitate." It was at the private school, but I recall them giving us something to comment on, and the correct answer was to reject it because all the footnotes pointed to sources with an agenda.
8) "We obscure things in nomenclature " - I never even heard of this in any school.
9) "We are TOO STUPID to switch to Metric.." I think I remember learning mostly metric, but they certainly never called us stupid. I think they just taught us metric without comment.

For my kids:
A) "Kwanza OVER Christmas" - I am certain they don't teach some holidays as being superior to others.
B) No Child Gets ahead - There's nothing like that.
C) No Winners: All Losers - They do teach this. They go way overboard on it too.
D) No bullying - I'm for no bullying, but they've turned bullying into almost a catchall for any behavior they don't like. We're working with them on this. Bullying is a word with a specific meaning to me, but they use it very broadly.
E) Time Magazine Weekly Reader (How to calculate your carbon footprint) - We teach them this, at least in terms elementary school kids can understand. I'm not sure if they're learning in school yet.
E2) "How Capitalism Destroys" - They've done nothing like this so far, but I wouldn't put it past them. The kids might hide it from us if they taught something like that because they're afraid we'd pull them out of the school.
F) Only ONE side of a conversation is REALLY allowed.- I don't know what this means.
G) A teacher calls ME out because I tutored someone in her math class - I've never heard anything like that. It sounds bizarre.

One thing not on your list is what I consider being neurotic about safety. It's not just the school. Our whole world is scared to let kids take any action or any responsibility.

I know the people who work at the school and run it. Some of them when to school with my wife or me. They don't do all this bizarre stuff. More and more I wonder if I live in a bubble.

Thank you. I am out of touch!

You are (hopefully, thankfully) out of touch as I believe the market for smokes is closer to $10 a pack nowadays!

I highly recommend "Creature from Jekyll Island"..it will impact you the same as Atlas...and it explains where they are taking us...you will thank yourself...

Remember that many of those folks were hippies, back in the day and you have a pretty good idea of what your typical socialist hippy might have been like.

Couldn't agree with you more. But it is a shame to see the only sane system, that has proven itself over two centuries, be the victim of its own success. Who knows what the replacement will be...