Young children should be kept out of government schools

In his recent letter to you (Kindergarten opponents ignoring the evidence) Eugene Paslov got it exactly backwards. There is plenty of evidence in favor of children spending as few of their years in government schools as possible. I’ll cite just a few.

In 1994 the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development issued its “Economic Survey of the United States.” On page 86 they stated “Third, the combination of a good higher education system and sub-standard primary and secondary education is a source of widening income disparity in the United States.” On page 113 they were even more explicit, “While it is true that American schools do a particularly poor job of educating blacks and Hispanics, one should not conclude that white students in middle-class suburbs are uniformly well served. In mathematics and science, the nation’s top high school students rank far behind much less elite samples of students in other countries.”

In 1998 the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Educational Research and Improvement issued a pamphlet entitled “Pursuing Excellence.” At the front of Chapter 3 it states “Performance of U.S. physics and advanced mathematics students was among the lowest of the 16 countries that administered the physics and advanced mathematics assessments.”

Mr. Paslov might want to read “A Nation At Risk” to get a better understanding of why parents should keep young children out of government schools. On page 11 he will find the following: “Each generation of Americans has outstripped its parents in education, in literacy, and in economic attainment. For the first time in the history of our country, the educational skills of one generation will not surpass, will not equal, will not even approach, those of their parents.”

Kindergarten-age children are well served by spending the maximum time possible with their mothers and fathers. Soon enough they will be forced into the government schools. The more time they can spend at home, allowing their parents to develop their mental abilities, the better.

Please note, the above citations are comments on ALL American government schools, not just Nevada’s.

David K. Schumann

Comments