Compulsory education means that in America, contrary to common view, we no longer live in land of free. Local and state governments that claim right to control our children’s education also claim, in effect, that they own our children’s minds and lives for twelve years. That is an appallingly arrogant claim, especially in America.

One reason public schools get away with educational murder, year after year, is because local governments violate parents’ liberty and parental rights with impunity. Local governments don’t own or run food stores, auto showrooms, office-supply stores, or pre-schools and private colleges in America. Yet they own public schools and control 1st through 12th grade education in America.

Do government officials have any right to dictate how we should educate our children? To answer this question, we have to examine what our Founding Fathers understood to be real function of government. In Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson clearly stated moral nature and purpose of government:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these rights are life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness—that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from consent of governed. . . ."

In other words, many children diagnosed with ADHD may simply be bright, normal kids, full of energy and bored out of their minds sitting in public-school classrooms.

In his testimony to Pennsylvania House Democratic Policy Committee, Bruce Wiseman, National President of Citizens Commission on Human Rights, stated that “thousands of children put on psychiatric drugs are simply ‘smart.’” He quoted late Sydney Walker, a psychiatrist and neurologist, as saying,

“They’re hyper not because their brains don’t work right, but because they spend most of day waiting for slower students to catch up with them. These students are bored to tears, and people who are bored fidget, wiggle, scratch, stretch, and (especially if they are boys) start looking for ways to get into trouble."

Boredom is not only reason children can exhibit symptoms of ADHD. Perfectly normal children who are over-active (have a lot of energy), rebellious, impulsive, day-dreamers, sensitive, undisciplined, bored easily (because they are bright), slow in learning, immature, troubled (for any number of reasons), learning disabled (dyslexia, for example), can also be inattentive, impulsive, or hyperactive.

Also, many factors outside classroom can stress or emotionally affect children. Some of these factors are: not getting love, closeness, or attention from their parents; if a parent, friend, or sibling is sick or dies; if parents are divorcing and there is anger, shouting, or conflict at home; domestic violence at home; sexual, physical, or emotional abuse by parents or siblings; inattention and neglect at home; personality clashes with parents or siblings; envy or cruelty directed at a child by classmates or by siblings at home, and many other factors.