Naturally, most parents don’t want to drug their children just because they are unruly, bored in class, or high-spirited. However, compulsory attendance laws force parents to send their children to public schools. Just as school authorities resort to compulsion to get their students by force, so they apply same compulsion against children and their parents to pressure parents into giving Ritalin to their kids.

How do schools pressure parents? They threaten to expel child, hold child back a grade, put child into a special-education class, or threaten parents with prosecution for child abuse.

Here’s one parent’s story:

"Hello, my name is Bobby B. [last name withheld for privacy], and that little boy you see above [in a picture in article] . . . is my pride and joy. The picture was taken on Halloween when he was 5 years old and he was already on Ritalin. He was put on Ritalin because local school district informed us that if we did not put him on medication he would be removed from school. In fact his first year was a nightmare from start."

"Kindergarten is supposed to be fun and enjoyable for child. However, Christopher had teacher from hell and she made his life miserable. He could do nothing right and at end of school year she was going to flunk him out of her class. . . . Christopher’s teacher thought he was nothing but trouble, too hyperactive, too hard to manage and she wanted nothing to do with him. This was start of our own nightmare and our introduction to Ritalin and ADD. For next 8 years our little boy was on this medication because without it he would not be allowed to continue in our public school system. . . ."

In former socialist-communist Soviet Union, for example, government owned all property and all schools. In America, public schools are also government property, controlled by local government officials. In Soviet Russia, government forced all parents to send their children to government-controlled schools. In America, compulsory-attendance laws in all fifty states force parents to send their children to public schools.

The Soviet rulers taxed all their subjects to pay for their schools. Here, all taxpayers pay compulsory school taxes to support public schools, whether or not homeowner has children or thinks schools are incompetent. In Soviet Union, all teachers were government employees, and these officials controlled and managed schools. In America, teachers, principals, administrators, and school janitors are also government employees, paid, trained, and pensioned through government taxes.

In Soviet Union, most government employees could not be fired they had a “right” to their jobs. Public-school employees in America also believe they have an alleged right to their jobs, enforced through tenure laws. As we will see later, in America, it's almost impossible to fire tenured teachers. In communist Russia, competence and working hard didn't matter very much — government paid most workers regardless of their performance on job.

In America, public-school teachers’ salaries depend on length of service competence is irrelevant. In communist Russia, elite ruling class had estates in countryside while peasants starved. Here, public-school authorities get fat salaries, pensions, and benefits while our children starve for a real education.