Hello Friends of NMIRI

 

Government schools clearly have a monopoly hold on education in NM.  We need to break that hold in order to encourage competition between schools and systems of education.  Why?...Because competition stimulates others to offer better quality and more reasonable outcomes for education at the right price.  Vouchers are even being recognized in NM by socialists like Manny Aragon who is trying to implement such programs in targeted schools in NM.  Why would he do this?  Because he knows that some marginal poor schools are not getting challenged to make the changes necessary so vouchers offer us a way to open up competition for education and get better outcomes for our expenditures in education.  One such option is the homeschooling efforts in NM and around the nation.  Below Wendy McElroy reviews these alternatives for public education.  Read on and think NM.

 

 

WENDY McELROY DEFENDS ALTERNATIVES TO PUBLIC SCHOOLS

 

Homeschooling and apprenticeships are unjustly maligned and should be

considered two important alternatives to public schooling, argues

Wendy McElroy, research fellow at the Independent Institute.

 

In "The Separation of School and State," her latest column for FoxNews.com, McElroy notes that U.S. literacy rates were high before public schooling. A French statesman who emigrated to America -- a contemporary of Thomas Jefferson -- wrote that "Not more than four in a thousand are unable to write legibly, even neatly" -- a result of widespread homeschooling.

 

"Today homeschooled students often perform better on standardized tests than those from public schools," writes McElroy. "In 2001, for example, homeschooled SAT-takers averaged 568 on the verbal test and 525 on the math; the national average was 506 on verbal and 514 on math."

 

Perhaps in response to the growing recognition that homeschoolers often outperform their age-cohorts in the public schools, foes of homeschooling are now claiming that it often acts as a mask for child abuse. All homeschoolers in New Jersey, for example, "may be subjected to indignities like criminal background checks and obstacles like health regulations more stringent than those imposed on public schools."

 

Apprenticeships -- which are actively promoted in Germany and Switzerland -- have been erroneously attacked in the United States as brutal child labor.

 

"My purpose is not to dispute with parents who send their children to public schools," writes McElroy. "I believe the system is a brutal failure, but parents must decide for themselves. I advocate extending alternatives far beyond the typical private versus public school debate, and even beyond homeschooling. . . . A universe of educational possibilities has been obstructed by the attempt to enforce a government monopoly over how, where, when, and what children learn."

 

See "The Separation of School and State," by Wendy McElroy (2/25/04) http://www.independent.org/tii/news/040225McElroy.html

 

Also see:

 

"Homeschooling Must Be Decriminalized: Parents Really Do Know Best," by Ariel Dillon (9/18/03) http://www.independent.org/tii/news/030918Dillon.html

 

SCHOOL CHOICES: True and False, by John D. Merrifield

http://www.independent.org/books/brief_school_choices.html

 

CAN TEACHERS OWN THEIR OWN SCHOOLS? New Strategies for Educational Excellence, by Richard K. Vedder http://www.independent.org/tii/catalog/cat_can_teachers.html

 

 

 

Professor M. Gene Aldridge

New Mexico Independence Research Institute, Inc.

galdridge@zianet.com

505 640 3447 or 505 523 8700 

 

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