What are prisons? They are places were people are locked up against their will for crimes they have committed. What is life like for a prisoner? The warden and prison guards, in effect, take away
prisoner’s life and freedom. They force a prisoner to live in a small cell he doesn’t want to live in, eat food he may hate, work at a job he detests, associate with other prisoners who may be dangerous, and remove him from everyone and everything he loved in outside world when he was free.
So why have we put our children into educational prisons called public schools? What crimes have they committed? Why do we condemn almost 45 million innocent children to this punishment? Do I exaggerate by calling these schools “prisons?” Well, let’s compare prisons and public schools.
Like prisons, public schools impose their will by force, by compulsion. Local governments force parents to send their children to public schools just as police drag convicted criminals into prison (even though many parents are not aware of this and voluntarily send their kids to these schools). A parent can be convicted of alleged child abuse and sent to prison if she disobeys school authority’s order to send her child to local public school.
Local governments then force parents to pay school taxes for these education prisons. If they don’t pay these taxes, their local government will foreclose on their home and throw them out on street.
School authorities force children to stay in school until they are 16 years old or graduate high school (these age limits vary by state). In effect, most children get a 10-year education prison sentence if they start school at age six.
School authorities force millions of children to sit in boxes called classrooms with 20 other children-inmates for six to eight hours a day, five days a week, for up to ten years. The children must obey adult education wardens (teachers and principals), who they may fear or dislike. They must study subjects they may hate or that bore them to death. They must associate only with other children their same age who may be bullies, violent, or emotionally disturbed. They must do homework and study for tests they must pass or be left back in school.
The children are removed from their loving parents and put under control of teacher-wardens who may not love them, care for them, or simply even have time to pay attention to them. They are stopped from being a free and free-spirited child. They are told to keep quiet. They are told to obey rules. They are told to march from classroom cell to classroom cell every 50 minutes to study different subject that may mean nothing to them.
