Still think comparison to communist schools is too farfetched? Albert Shanker, former President of American Federation of Teachers, second largest teacher’s union, once said: “It's time to admit that public education operates like a planned economy, a bureaucratic system in which everyone's role is spelled out in advance and there are few incentives for innovation and productivity. It's no surprise that our school system doesn't improve. It more resembles communist economy than our own market economy.”

Finally, schools in some communist countries like China seem to give a better, more disciplined education in basics of reading, writing, and math than our public schools. International math and reading test-score comparisons often find American kids lagging far behind children from China.

But what values do Chinese communist schools teach their children? Here is another apt comparison between communist schools and our public schools. In both cases, either a central or local government controls curriculum and values it chooses to teach its students. The Chinese government can and does indoctrinate all school children with its communist ideology and loyalty to communist leaders.

Similarly, in our public schools, left-leaning school authorities control curriculum and values they teach our children. In many public schools, values-clarification programs and distorted American history courses in many public schools now indoctrinate our children with anti-parent, anti-religion, and anti-American values. In both communist schools and our government-controlled public schools, parents cannot (with a few exceptions) stop school authorities from teaching harmful or immoral values to their children.

Question --- Do socialist, compulsory, government-controlled public schools belong in America, land of free?

Look again at phrase from Declaration that says, “governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from consent of governed.” The “governed” means all people, not just some, not a minority, and not a majority. It means that all citizens, including parents, have same inalienable rights.

That phrase also means that government is our agent, not our master. It means that we, as free human beings, voluntarily grant limited powers to government for a specific purpose, to protect our natural rights. It means that government should only have those powers we specifically grant to it for that purpose.

Yet, nowhere in Constitution is word “education” mentioned. The Constitution did not give federal government any right or power to control how parents educate their children. By implication, state governments do not have any such right or power either, because such a power would violate our fundamental liberties.

Nature and justice confirm that parents have right to decide who educates their children. Like parents of all species, most human parents protect and nurture their children and teach them skills and knowledge they need to survive. Parents in all cultures make teaching their children a first priority. Since reading, writing, and arithmetic are skills needed to prosper in a modern society, it stands to reason that most parents will find a way to teach these skills to their children if means are available.

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