I agree. If you read the entirety of what I wrote, I believe decentralization is paramount. In my nomination, I discuss that until the Federal Department of Education is abolished, it should be used as an educational touchstone-- disseminated best practices and offering grants to schools willing to innovate with ideas that promote true learning and the best educational outcomes.
I believe MOST school boards ARE comprised of parents whose children still or were part of that educational system and are passionate about ensuring the best for children. I also have seen it become a brewing ground for political aspirations (mostly by the hard left) who advocate for education in ways they do not understand or have no experience. I also offer that anyone outside of child education really has no idea what actually transpires within a school or classroom. For instance, I have had MANY students that would continually ask to go to the bathroom, and were found to be vaping in the bathroom continuously and not actually using the facilities for their purpose, some who were conspiring to meet with their boyfriends/girlfriends for physical interactions, and I have had students do the same to fight someone. The rules are not created to be arbitrary and controlling in many instances, but to ensure that we are accountable for students and they are actually safe. Does this mean we should deny students who actually need to use the restroom the ability to? Absolutely not, but there is no easy answer, especially when you work in schools where the importance of education is not understood by students and they will use any available means to avoid the classroom (indoors or outdoors, as I have worked in ESTEM where a minimum of 30% of classtime was required outside, rain or shine, snow or sun) and use it for social interactions that can be problematic.
There is also no easy answer when we live in a societal paradigm where both parents MUST work (in most instances) and school acts as both educator and babysitter. Does this mean we can’t do it? No, but we need to get educational mercantilism out of schools and incorporate more holisitc outdoor and experiential education for students to help set them up for finding their passion. This is a herculean effort.
@ReblMom How fascinating that you were unschooled for your entire childhood! Wow, you are crucially needed on Trump-RFK, Jr.'s team for education! How free your life must have been. I am so grateful that I unschooled my son, Brycen from age 12 after our adoption was finalized, through his graduation (6-12th “grades”). I thank God daily that I unschooled my sweet boy, and that he had so much joy and freedom as a result, because he tragically died at age 23. Imagine if he had spent ages 12-18 in the prison of schooling and then died before realizing his dreams? This is a huge reason why children must be rescued from the public school system: They lose the best years of their lives sitting at desks in mental and physical pain and creative apathy.
I subscribed to your Substack just now. Here’s a link to mine: https://laurieacouture.substack.com/ I also hope you’ll vote for me for the Team!
Laurie, thank you for sharing that. What an incredibly powerful story, and I’m so sorry for your loss. Knowing your son had those years to experience real joy and freedom without the walls of traditional schooling—it’s a gift that speaks volumes about the importance of unschooling. The idea of kids spending their best years confined to desks, missing out on living fully, hits hard. You’ve put into words exactly why this work is so important.
Thank you for subscribing! I’m excited to read your Substack as well, and of course, you have my vote. Let’s keep pushing this movement forward together.
I can’t seem to find our nominee page—would you mind sharing the link here? I’d love to vote for you!
@ReblMom Thank you for your kind words–It really does hit hard thinking of children losing out on the best years of their lives, especially when I watched my son and his fellow unschoolers and homeschoolers and their creative passion over the years!
I look forward to reading your Substack and staying connected!
@Jkatiebuie I hear what you are conveying, but I have to disagree with the tone about school teachers being helpless. The history and unchanging cycle of public schooling, based upon an 1800s factory model, shows that the rules absolutely are made to control children. Children do not need that type of control–The alternative schools that run on a unschooling, child-centered, and democracy model prove that children do not require control. It is the system itself (the antithesis to our Constitutional Republic) that leads to children sneaking around, using substances, and engaging in bullying and violence.
Who wouldn’t want to sneak around to escape the classroom? I know I did! No self-respecting adult would ever tolerate a boss that denied them use of the toilet–This is just such a disgusting abuse of children’s humanity.
I 100% agree with you about a holistic, outdoor model, however… I’d love to hear more from you about that, because this is what I advocate for, as well.
It seems that link goes to your profile, not the nomination page. I’ve looked up and down the Education category three times and can’t find your name anywhere.
Many teachers ARE helpless as they are beholden to the same rules and regulations as the children, and to keep your position, you acquiesce! There are many great and wonderful teachers and educators who care and wish things were different, including myself, but our current compulsory educational paradigm, coupled with the need for the vast majority of parents to work as our cost of living requires it, makes it nearly impossible for parents to advocate out of it because it is in a negative feedback loop. I will disagree with you about the motivations of students as solely a result of the educational system itself, there are so many complex and nuanced reasons for these children doing what they are doing— not the least of which is home life— where many parents would never dream of unschooling their children and are content with the status quo. If it were true that all students feel traumatized in school, we would see all students behaving this way, and there are many who thrive. Do I want change? Yes. Do I think the entire educational paradigm of the United States can be dismantled in 4 years? Unlikely. So I want to come up with solutions to make education in America evolve, help teachers/schools/districts feel empowered to innovate and try new things, sponsor studies to build guidelines showing the benefits of play-based/experiential/outdoor education, and keep building from there. I guess I am a bit of a skeptic, while also hoping eternally.
Not sure how to start a separate topic in here. But what I need to say can fall in on what you wrote.
This is a lot of what needs to be discussed. But here is the bad and broken system I’ve come across and lived through in my life ! Everything below needs to be addressed across the nation and fixed in a very big way !!!
Education itself in my Grandpa’s era wasn’t done in school settings or church settings. It was at the local food market, or sitting under a tree with a friend or someone within the community or in his home. My point being, Education isn’t solely religious or controlled by any church. It is public for a reason. In history the majority of the wars in Europe and the Middle East had a lot of religious violence to them. I’ve met and worked with many Atheists in the USA and over seas. 99% of them had more values, moral ethics, and put themselves in harms way than many I met who went to church. That issue set aside. Lets talk civics and education and a little of my personal knowledge of matters that need to be addressed in a very serious way. 1. Bullies, every bully I met was paid for by some parent who didn’t want a particular child to outshine their child, so a bully was paid to pick on students so the one child was not identitied. Since elementary school I ended up standing up to bullies because a good friend of mine got hurt really bad for his skin color and had to leave our country so his family would no longer get harmed. The bully was paid to harm him and it was the case all through every year of education…even college. In college it was private schools targeting public schools and using other espionage methods, spy’s, and bully’s, thefts and vise versa. Public and private been at war for over thirty years. And they call it “competition”.
2. Professors PhD’s under warfare by private companies, defense companies, energy companies, competing education facilities. I was contracted and never accepted money when I protected professors from various teams trying to end the life of the professors, or steal from them, or abduct them. I never took money.
3. When religion becomes primary in education there are other qualities that subtle as they are get pushed into a religous setting and doesn’t allow for full conversations or individual thoughts. Thus allows for beliefts to be altered to such a degree that it becomes about religion, church, and God, and the truth of the situation gets nudged aside. I’ve seen this too many times in my life to count. The only folks in my iife I’ve seen actually dig deep into any situation has been the attorney’s on social media standing up for our rights and the constitution and farmers. My Gandpa was a farmer and a Baptist. Also American Indian.
Future of Education what needs to be done:
Not one person I know in my life or met in my life has the 3,000 page Constitution adendum, or the original 300 page Constitution. Everyone I’ve met has the pocket guide version. This is not education. This is a tourist attraction. Primary example: https://www.gpo.gov/bookstore , or https://www.bookstore.gpo.gov both come up with broken links. When I type in Constitution Book I don’t get a book. I get links to publications and articles. When I type in 300 page Constitution, nope. Won’t show up in search results yet, I have links in my bookmarks from some years ago to those books.
When I learned the constitution I was debating Articles of the Constitution when I was 12 and 13 years old. Professors of Contitutiontal Law showed up at the Junior College I was at to watch us and help us during the debates. I had the 300 page Constitution then…before the CIA stole it from me along with the writings of the founders that were letters and the federalist papers.
Every child needs to read the federalist papers in elementary school Read the founders letters as well. Not based on religion but based on ethical research, critical thinking, debating strategy, hope, a better future, and fundamentals of building a nation.
This is education at its core. When these are discussed then the picture of what country you live in becomes more clear and a focus of where life is becomes more directionable.
By the time the child is in Junior High and High School they shall have the 300 page Consittution as well as the 3,000 page Adendum. This is not left to them to discover how to find. The Convention of States - COS who I’m pretty pissed of at “its up to our members to find these books”. So I did find these books and they refused to put the links to the United States Printing office store on their store website for the public to link to to purchase direclty from the United States Printing Office. Beside that angst. Here is the point. You want the people to be educated…don’t expect them to hunt something down when the work is already done of where to find the books. How many know why the United States Printing Office exists, what it does, how its designed to function, and what it publishes, and that the public can buy directly from it ? In my day, I ordered from the United States printing office and when I couldn’t afford the books, I ordered from the Library of Congress a book loan. This is the reason we have libraries as a priority !!! Not as a secondary side note. So as part of education of the children, Parents and their families need to visit the Library no less than once a week on a book hunting and research project.
Educaiton is time consuming. So is life. Without an educated child goes an uneducated adult. The families I’ve met in my life who were well balanced in their lives were active in their childs education where they were not writing papers for their child, but after the child was done with their books they were using for the night, their parents picked up the book and read through the book and did their own version of the homework separate from their child.
By the time the child is to graduate High School they have to debate 5 articles of the 300 page Constitution against 5 articles of the 3,000 page Constitution. Why? This is how public discussions begin on what needs to be changed and removed from the 3,000 page. It also builds character of understanding ones own country. Our nation became “compartmentalized” meaning, the basic knowledge of our country landed in the hands of a few people who dedicated their careers and lives and hearts to holding the fabric of our nation together while the rest of us were building our lives. The founders never meant for this to be this way at all !!! This is why there is a United States Printing Office paid for by the People of the United States and not a monarchy !!!
There are certain functions of the United States that requires public access and needs and not reliant on grants, donations, or private companies for obvious reasons. Education is one of them ! Libraries another ! When we get into private companies and facilities that rely on donations or grants…then it becomes an exclusive club that only certain people will have access where others will not. I’ve seen this everywhere where donations are needed for the facilities to function. Education MUST NOT HAVE THIS HAPPEN ANY MORE !!!
jUNIOR COLLEGE: One semester debating 10 Articles of the Constitution 3,000 page vs 300 page books. Breaking down the good, bad, and ugly.
Class room size no more than 17 students across the board from elementary to junior high, high school, junior college, university. Period. I’ve seen professors who needed to deal with detailed work stress with time constraints with 21 or more students. Same for all the other classed in my life.
Career testing technology. The work force program has a testing program that allows for us to test where our strenghts are, our hobbies, interests, abilities, what we like and dislike. This has not been applied to High Schoolers, Junior College, or Universities. This computer program with career specialists need to be primary from here on out with the ability to guide the student into those fields with the training of Home Economics and Small Business economic training so starting a small business doesn’t rely on the broken system that is in place today.
Public School curriculum K through 12 needs to be scrapped and new curriculum created to teach history, civics, mathematics, science, reading, writing and penmanship. Marxist and socialistic ideologies do not belong in American public schools.
We need school choice, vouchers parents should not be forced to send their children to government schools…
Please look into the Humpty Dumpty Institute, a branch of MIT. The eugenics program that began with Jeffrey Epstein President of the Board (presently his brother John Epstein has the position, unless replaced), control our Public School Lunch Programs across America. Elijah Cummings was on the board, now deceased as well as Maxine Waters, etc. Adam Schiff recently stated he wanted the ‘free lunch program’ expanded to preschoolers.It is currently difficult locating the in depth information as located in prior research.
I have been a part of these garden/agricultural programs for several years. They are rarely successful. Students are not attending school during the growing season when the majority of the work needs to be done. It is impossible to get parents to bring their children to complete the necessary work when schools are not in session. Plus, all the USFA/FDA regulations do not allow the use of foods grown to be utilized in the schools. Parents do not have time (nor the interest) to grow a family garden, let alone help with a community garden. In theory, this is a great idea. However, in practice, it is rarely successful. Many times, even when it is successful, a new administration cuts funding for more sports programs.
Carol Sweeney. I think that is her name. She is a beautiful & talented educator already. I would love to have seen her as Trumps VP too. She is the one that was copied by the Harvard Head master. I think… not 100% thats the school but she ended up quitting bc she know she was caught
I heard from a customer service agent that wrote this:
“I do not yet see that the data has ported over to the Nominees for the People site. No one can vote for you until it does. You may want to try back tomorrow. Just enter your name in search nominees and hit enter. If you see your name in red, then the nomination is live. Right now only your user data is appearing as follows, without a “topic post” which is where nominations reside.”
I checked back this morning and the Vote button still is not showing up. I sent them another email. I won’t be available most of the rest of today, so hopefully the data will process today. This must be why I could not vote for you, either, and I hope that goes through for you, too today.
@Jkatiebuie Not all children will exhibit their trauma the same way, because you are correct that their lives are complex and traumas come from home and social world, too. However, the school industry shapes a certain social and behavioral reaction in kids that we do not see in homeschooling groups nor in child-centered private schools. We see the larger effects of public school trauma by how complacent our population has become, to the point where Communism has been on the verge of taking over this country and everyone is drunk on screens. Whether acting-out, violent, or withdrawn and compliant, those are all symptoms of the trauma of captivity. Think The Stockholm Syndrome–That is the result of schooling: Parents who once abhorred school put their own children right into that same system. Maverick teachers who have stood up and refused to go along with the way the system treats children have left their teaching positions in the public schools and gone to teach in child centered schools or started their own schools. John Taylor Gatto was one such high school teacher. He’s now one of the grandfathers of unschooling.
I hear you on this. Yes, curriculum does need to return to what it was when we went to School.
Public has received a really bad reputation not solely due to its own fault. Its been suffering forces from many angles to undermine it. People who see public funds as a cash cow, political agenda’s to undermine education for political talking points or political action agenda’s. Construction jobs that never really finish their work. Then people from other countries who want to work in the USA as teachers and thus, teachers fired for unkown or aranged situations.
If I hadn’t gone to a private shool for two years and left due to the abuse I suffered there because I was considered “poor handout class”. And, I wasn’t allowed to attend Lutheran in elementary school because I was asking the “wrong questions”, and came from the wrong financial tree line. There have been people I met who were paid to undermine public education and have two questions:
WHY does the Dep’t of Education exist??? WHY do we need a FEDERAL Dept of Education??? Seems a Huge waste of money and a very nice boondogle for beurocrats to siphon off large amounts of TaxPayer money!!! ELIMINATE This Wasteful Department.
After surviving 2020 and what we learned from distance learning we can leverage the experience for the highschool students now to be able to get college credit for taking some of their classes online. Community college credit is sometimes awarded to students with dual enrollment where the in person class is a cohort where the students earned college credit and highschool credit for the same class. This gave the students an advantage for applying to college as they already had a couple credits and they were paid by the taxpayers. This has two great effects one in that they have it paid and can experience the rigor of college level classes. Two, it can encourage them to go to college or it can be a wake up call for taking more work skills based classes that focus on a certification for the workforce. Mike Rowe helped to bring awareness to the trades. I entered the workforce as a young college drop out before working on vehicles for safety and emissions inspection for years before changing careers and going back to school online while working as a teacher assistant learning the trade of education while learning online for college credit. Online classes are not for everyone 2020 taught us that but we can leverage the experience of online learning for nature highschool students who want to earn college credit early before graduation. This rigor will steer some to more StEM certification program and that’s a cost savings for students and parents and taxpayers.
I no longer have children in school and I do not have a nomination for this program.
I do agree, a family should have a right to school choice. On the Local level the School District in my area is one of the poorest School in the State of Pennsylvania. This is Not a school of color, it is just a poor under served area with little to no jobs.
The School has sued the State for more money and did win. They did get millions. The problem is ,most of that money will not go to better the education of the kids. It is to pay for pensions, salaries and building maintenance.
Property Taxes in my area are extremely high- not all areas of the State face the same issue ,it varies by County.
It is essential when Federal Government sends money to the State to pay for schools, that All that money be sent to the schools.
My State of Pennsylvania does not send all the money they get from Federal Government to the schools. I want an accountability of this. Where is that money?
I have an issue with schools getting so desperate for money, they higher lawyers to Appeal Tax Assessments on peoples homes and skip over the County Tax Office’s Authority. They are using their own Lawyers to go after taxpayers for back taxes. This is happening in my area.
This in itself hurts the taxpayers as these lawyers slap lawyer fees on top of the back taxes. There has to be a better way to keep people in their home instead of Schools going after people’s homes for more money. Many of these are elderly and families who are left homeless because of this practice.
Take this ability away from Schools and make it a mandate they focus on what they are suppose to do. Teach Children
This can be done by saying they will not get Federal Money if they pursue using Collection Agencies and Lawyers to appeal Taxes on Homes. Let that go back to the County which always took care of it in the past.
The last issue I have is many schools are building these ridiculous multi million dollar schools and abandoning a school that is 30-50 years old. Many of these new schools look like resorts.
Please bring back simplicity of education. Eliminate these expensive school buildings that hurts the local taxpayers. In my area that is why people are falling behind on taxes.
I would like to say it is rather frustrating to pay near 8 thousand dollar in property taxes a year on a home assessed at 78 thousand . That is what I as an elderly person am paying in my area. 4600 goes to the school.
I’ve heard many versions of why it came into being besides what the history books have recorded. One version I liked was when the states or counties or cities didn’t have funds they had something to reach out to. But that got abused over the years. The other side of the discussion came in that there needed the Federal Government to level the education field across the USA because each state had their own version and didn’t in many instances meet the basic standards of education, and, if you moved to another State you had to start all over again in your education because the state was much further along than what you learned, or, worse yet were way ahead of what that state was teaching.
It wasn’t supposed to be this catch all of funding and governing of education with huge unwarranted strings attached bacause some elected official needed to be making news… but a baseline of support. Nothing more.
