Not only is this child’s spelling atrocious and teacher’s “Wow” grade damaging to child, but lesson itself is insidious. Should teachers be giving writing assignments to children about how and why they should run away from home?

Spelling affects people’s lives. A person who doesn’t spell words correctly can’t communicate effectively with employees, supervisors, customers, patients, clients, business associates, contractors, or parents. He or she can’t be sure of exact meaning of misspelled words in a contract, mortgage, medical consent form, or other crucial documents or instructions.

Invented spelling also makes a bad impression on employers and college admissions officers. Yet many public schools no longer think spelling is important enough to spend time on during school day.

Parents, invented spelling is yet another reason why you should seriously consider taking your children out of public school and looking for better education alternatives elsewhere. The Resources section in "Public Schools, Public Menace" describes many low-cost, quality education alternatives you can take advantage of right now.

Article Copyrighted © 2005 by Joel Turtel.

9. Many public schools subject children to drugs, bullies, violence, and values many parents disapprove of.

10. Public schools pressure many parents who have bright, normal children to give their kids potentially dangerous mind-altering drugs to make bored kids "behave" in class. Over four million allegedly "unruly" kids line up for Ritalin every day in public schools across America. Methylphenidate (sold as Ritalin) and cocaine are both listed in "Schedule II" of U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency's Controlled Substances Act (CSA).

11. Public schools are compulsory. They therefore violate parents’ natural and constitutional right to control education of their children. Public school authorities, whose salaries we pay with our taxes, force parents to hand over their children to government employees called teachers and to schools that give an inferior education.

12. Public schools can destroy children's love of learning and self-confidence as learners. This can cripple children's ambitions and desire to go to college. This in turn, can force these children to end up with low-paying jobs for rest of their lives if and when they graduate high school.

13. Public schools force millions of Christian parents to hand over their children to public schools which are decidedly anti-Christian. For example, many social studies textbooks used in public schools have censored out references to such words as 'family,' 'marriage,' 'religion,' 'fidelity,' etc. Many textbooks today refer to a family simply as people choosing to live together.

14. Public schools force children to witness sometimes shocking or obnoxious sexual material in sex-education classes, without parents’ knowledge or consent.

15. The public-school near monopoly and compulsory-attendance laws cripple parents right and ability to choose a quality, low-cost school in an education free-market that has been squashed by public-school monopoly.

Parents should consider taking their kids out of public school permanently. Parents can take advantage of quality, low-cost education alternatives available to them right now, such as new Internet private schools that have low tuition costs.

Joel Turtel is an education policy analyst, and author of “Public Schools, Public Menace: How Public Schools Lie To Parents and Betray Our Children."

Article Copyrighted © 2005 by Joel Turtel.