More on Public School Funding

As I wrote about earlier my local school district Anoka-Hennepin (AH) is pushing hard to pass a new levy. While no one is doubting (least of all me) that AH will experience real cuts if the levys all fail, What I do question is how the money is spent and if it is right to force everyone to pay exorbitant prices (over $9,000 per student) for a mediocre education - if not actually Dumbing Us Down

Over at Truth V. The Machine (TvM) in Education Funding and My Levy several key points are mentioned:

...where does the money go? When you buy a box of “education”, what are you buying?

Looking at the same document, for 05-06, the district spent 48.5% on Instruction-Salaries. Add in benefits and “All Other”, (not sure what that is), that number goes to 68.3%.

Add in Instructional and Pupil Support Services, that number goes to 76.9%.

Add in School Level Administration, that number goes to 81.5%.

In other words, let’s be clear. When we go to “support the children”, or “invest in property values”, or buy a box of “education,” we’re talking primarily about increasing teacher salaries and benefits

TvM was able to dig up some interesting facts regarding teacher salaries over the past several years:

The Minnesota School Board Association website does have teacher salary averages for the districts. You can find that here. Here’s a summary of the data there for District 11.

School Year	BAMIN	BAMAX	ST	MAMIN	MAMAX	ST	AVG	TP%
1999-2000	$28,854	$44,223	12	$32,036	$51,457	12	$3,001	5.31%
2000-2001	$30,702	$45,992	11	$34,129	$53,515	11	$3,380	5.68%
2001-2002	$31,316	$46,912	11	$34,812	$54,585	11	$2,603	4.22%
2002-2003	$32,000	$47,875	11	$35,600	$56,225	11	$3,648	5.68%
2003-2004	$32,480	$49,300	12	$36,045	$58,800	12	$3,683	5.60%
2004-2005	$33,942	$49,400	11	$37,744	$58,800	11	$3,071	4.42%
2005-2006	$34,621	$50,759	11	$38,499	$60,711	11	$3,804	5.46%
2006-2007	$35,962	$51,774	10	$40,705	$61,925	10	$3,182	4.33%

I believe (but am not sure) that TP is for total package. But, you can see increases every year. Some of those increases came in years when the state was running a deficit. (From 02 to 05, the basic revenue amount stayed put at $4,601.)

That's some decent salary increases., not a dry year in the bunch. This is again the problem with public education. It does not have to be bothered by market forces, you want 5% salary increases every-single-year, well if you have enough lobbying power, you got it! However, this year the State backed off and, while AH is not actually getting less money from the State, it is getting a smaller increase than it has in the past. It looks to me like this levy simply ensures automatic yearly salary increases

Here is what I propose: Give all children the choice to pick the school they want, then give them the money to go do it. I mean any school, public, private, homeschool. Why are we forced by our tax dollars to pay huge amounts of money for a poor education? Let the money follow the student and you will find an amazing revival in education in the this country. Until that time we will continue to pay more and more for a worse and worse education. If we have freedom of choice for school, there would no longer be a need to be worried about the Teacher's Union. If they can help provide a good education then the students will come, if not they will find the solution that works for them. But, again don't expect the Teacher's Unions pushing anything that would help the children, remember they are The Teachers Union, not the Children's Union, even though they love to hide behind the backs of our children.

Vote No on the levy until we have freedom of choice for our schools.

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Little Britches

I just finished reading Little Britches by Ralph Moody as part of my continuing TJEd. This is a wonderful little story of a young man (Ralph Moody) who moves with his family from the east to Colorado to take up ranching. While Ralph's whole family takes up ranching the story centers on Ralph and his Father. There are great role models in this story for both fathers and sons as Ralph's father seems to have the perfect blend of compassion and discipline when dealing with his son's typical boyish ways.

Ralph grows up quickly in the two or three years covered in Britches, and although he is still a boy of 9 - 11 he learns from his mistakes and the lessons taught to him by his father as they struggle to make ends meet, deal with tragedies and negotiate with difficult neighbors on their new Ranch. Despite it all, the Moodys are in good spirits because they have an understanding of what really brings true happiness. One thing that I will try to take away from Britches as a father was the way Ralph's father allowed Ralph to take ownership of the Ranch. That became the motivating factor to much of Ralph's participation and behavior. I hope to incorporate that into my own parenting.

After I was about 3/4 of the way through Britches I read the first two chapters to my 9 year old son and afterward could not tear the book from his hands. He loved the book and I'm going to have to get him the next few books about Ralph Moody.

In case you were wondering, this book is an auto-biography by Ralph Moody and the first in a series. If Anne of Green Gables was a book that gave insight into the motivation of girls, Britches gave at least as much insight into boys. I reccomend this book to anyone of any age who enjoys horses, cowboys, ranching, father-son relationships, or is just in need of a good uplifting story. Little Britches will make you want to be a better son, daughter, mother or father.

I reccomend you Get The Book Now

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Paying Twice For Education

My local School District Anoka-Hennepin (AH) is looking to pass another levy this year. I find it very sneaky of them to put this in on an off year election. It virtually guarantees passage of the levy because they have a built in get-out-the-vote effort in their schools and their supporters are the only ones who will actually make it to the polls. The Schools are all pushing their agendas with some scare tactics. According to The Anoka Hennepin Web Site if all 4 levy referendums fail:

... reductions [will] include closing up to six elementary schools, two middle schools and one high school, which would change all attendance area boundaries in the district. Also on the list is elimination of 507 regular education teachers, which would increase class size by six to 12 students, depending on the grade and school. Another 239 positions would be cut including administrators, special education staff, instructional coaches not funded by grants, technology support teachers, counselors, secretaries, paraprofessionals and custodians.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics (IES) That amounts to the elimination of approximitely 22% of schools and Teachers but only 10% of the administrative staff while the total cut amounts to only 16% of their funding if the levies fail. Truth v. The Machine puts it this way:

It’s hard for the average joe like me to understand why near apocalyptic results would have to occur if 16% of funding was lost. If my salary was cut by 16%, I’d sure feel it, but I wouldn’t be living under a bridge the next day.

Another question I have is how the increase in property values since 2002 is accounted for, plus the increase in new homes built since then.

These are curious questions, that to my knowledge have not been answered. Also the levy that is expiring is $25-$26 million and the new levy totals $42.3 million.

But having said that I do have to mention that AH is one of the better and fiscally conservative Public School districts in the State. The problem is that it is public and therefore cannot possibly educate children on any semblance of a budget. According to IES it costs AH $9,685 to educate each child in the district per year while Minnesota Public schools average is aprox $14,000. I doubt you could find a private school in the country that costs that much. The school district will say you can't compare Public and Private Schools because the following reasons (my responses in red)

• The public school district provides and subsidizes busing and some education services for private schools. - Then charge the students for busing. If they want to drive their kids to school or they walk then they don't need to pay the fee. AH pays 12% of its resources on Busing, food, counseling, and Health. These services could almost be eliminated tomorrow and the District would no longer have a budget problem. They are not functions of education - especially 'counseling'
• The state labor laws do not require private schools to have unionized employee groups so those employees cannot strike. - This is a problem that does need to be eliminated. There should be no unions in government, And teachers should not be allowed to strike. But don't expect the Teacher's Union to lobby the legislature to eliminate their own union. It's a self perpetuating problem and the Teacher's union loves it.
• Private schools do not need to meet many of the state and federal mandates public schools must meet. - This is another self perpetuating problem. The Teacher's Union lobby the state (they have the largest lobby in Minnesota) and federal government to put all these mandates in place and then complain that they need to raise taxes because they are forced to pay for the mandates.
• Private schools can select the students they take. Students who are disruptive or who have learning or physical disabilities all require more staff and facilities than do a selective group of students. The public schools must take all children who come to them - free public education is a constitutional and civil right determined by federal legislation and upheld by the Supreme Court. Private schools can exclude those students who take more effort or more money to educate. - This is another problem that the Teacher's Union will not help to alleviate. Free Public education should be a privilege, not a right. If that privilege is abused by disruptive behavior then those students should be expelled and not allowed to lower every one's education. But the Teachers Unions do the exact opposite they will always lobby on behalf of any and every policy that will increase the cost of education, and then complain about why they are 'forced' to pay so much for education
  

How much will the new levy cost me? According to their tax estimator if all levies pass I'll pay approx $462 more a year in property taxes on a bill that is already over $3,500. Most of which already goes to the the AH School district. It would be one thing if I actually had children in the School District, which I do not. One could make the argument that everyone benefits from public education and even people without school age children need to help support the education of those who are. It's a little weak argument I would suggest, because those who benefit the most are the people actually receiving the education, but it's an argument you could make.

However, I do have children of school age that are not using the Public Schools. According to what AH pays per student this should save the District over $9,000 per year for each of my children. I have 3 of school age - a savings of over $29,000 a year!. Do I get a cut of that $27,000 to help educate my children? Of course not. I don't get one red cent. Do I get a discount on my property taxes that help to fund the Public Education system that my children are not using? Of course not. Will the Teacher's Union or AH School District lobby the legislature to provide vouchers to students not using the Public Education system? No! They lobby for the exact opposite.

The Bottom line is that I pay for 100% of my own children's education, I have no endowments, no deep pocket religious or private organization contributing funds. I even pay to be a member of the Home School Legal Defence Association to legally protect myself from interference by the State or School District. Now once I have paid for my children's education, and protection from the Schools invading my own education of my children I am now asked to pay for the education of everyone else's education too. This is like being taken out back an mugged. Its appalling that the district comes to me and asks me to pay for my children's education TWICE. And among the myriad of reasons to vote against the levy, making me pay twice guarantees that I will vote no on the Anoka-Hennepin School District Levy this year.

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A Connecticut Yankee in King Author's Court

I love to read to my kids. It's one of my favorite things to do with them. Recently we finished reading A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain. Having never read this classic before I expected it to be a little bit more 'kid oriented' than it was. There were many times when my 7 and 9 year-olds struggled to make it through the book.

Yankee had so many facets to it that it is hard to pin down. At times it is laugh out loud funny, or highly ironic and other times the humor is quite dark. At still other times it is down right preachy, especially against Medieval Monarchy and the Catholic church. (be sure to be aware of this, I had to overcome some of Twain's biases against the Catholic Church) Sometimes it goes into great detail about topics that 7 and 9 year olds really would not care less about, There was a whole chapter of our Hero explaining about inflation and the value of money. Several times I had to get out the dictionary myself because I could not explain what the author was saying to my children without it.

Kids will surprise you though. Alexis, my 7 year-old, had about had it with Yankee, and although I wanted to push through the book, I am convinced that reading needs to be something they want to do (especially during this love-of-learning stage of their education - See my post on TJEd for more on that). So I asked her if she wanted to finish the book, or to move on to our next one. I expected her to say "Let's read a different book, dad" and I was fully prepared to do it. However, she instead declared her intent to stick it out and we sat down to read the next chapter which was very engrossing and humorous to her and her brother, I knew we would be able to finish it after that.

I am very glad we did finish it and I know my kids are too. We really enjoyed watching 'The Boss' (i.e. The Yankee) and King Author roam about the country incognito and how the King reacts to being sold into slavery, and their amazing and improbable rescue. The ending has absolutely stunning climax pitting 6th century England against the marvels of the The Boss' nineteenth century inventions. that I would have never guessed and my son loved it.

As we read the book, it was interesting to see how easy a time The Boss had in the 6th Century and I made it a point several times to ask the children why they thought that was. The answer comes dripping out of the pages: the Boss can THINK, no one else there can. This type of sentiment about the people of 6th century England was a constant theme, like this quote in which The Boss refers to the Knights of the Round Table:

There did not seem to be brains enough in the entire nursery, so to speak, to bait a fish-hook with; but you didn't seem to mind that, after a little, because you soon saw that brains were not needed in a society like that, and indeed would have marred it, hindered it, spoiled its symmetry -- perhaps rendered its existence impossible.

I would highly recommend this book for those 9 and up (although you might be safer at 11) who are studying history, government or sociology or just want a good read. There is a wealth of commentary in Yankee on each subject and it would be a fun way to explore ideas about each and about human nature itself.

Get The Book Now

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Et Tu Ranger Rick?

My eldest (9) has had a subscription to Ranger Rick for about as long as I can remember (and I'm sure as long as he can), mostly because at an early age he has expressed a great interest in animals and his grandmother has been kind enough to give him the continuing subscription. If you ask him what he want to be when he grows up, he doesn't say fireman or policeman or astronaut, he says "Marine Biologist". How am I to argue with that?

Not that I have any desire to. Often he come to me and give me some outrageous animal fact like: did you know that a Camel can do spit 100 yards? (OK, I made that up, but you get the idea) I used to tell him 'that can't be right' until he hands me his Ranger Rick. Now I have learned that he probably knows more than I do about animals and I should just trust him.

On the whole Ranger Rick has been a great asset to him and I am happy to have it in my home, and really haven't given it a second thought. However, (you knew this was coming , right?) yesterday what do I see on my counter but his Ranger Rick on the cabinet opened to a page Entitled "What's Up with Global Warming" by Gerry Bishop. Crap! Can't they just stick to animals? Of course 'What's Up' is that Humans are causing the earth to warm because of all the CO2 that we put into our environment. And if we don't drastically reduce our use of fossil fuels it will be a disaster. Did they present the other side? Did they state that there is a growing number of reputable scientists that doubt that Global Warming is caused by humans? Is it possible that Global Warming could be a good thing? Is there a 'right temperature' that earth should be at? Nope, not one word.

Ranger Rick's young readers now know as a fact (because they trust Ranger Rick to be right - even when their own parents didn't know things that are in the magazine) that Global Warming will be a disaster and it is being caused by humans. I started explaining this to my children at supper yesterday and I got this interesting question, 'What does bias mean, daddy?' Do you see how influential our children are? be sue to fill them with the right stuff.

Upon further examination their website is full of Scary Global Warming 'Facts' and even links to Greenpeace. I suppose I should not have been so naive. It's still sad to see how acceptable it is for a magazine as reputable as this to push an agenda on our children, and that they have bought into our non-thinking culture. Ranger Rick will continue to come to my home, but I will spend a bit more time looking it it myself. Maybe then I will be able to tell you some cool stuff you didn't know about animals...

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A Letter To My Alma Mater

Each year I get a nice phone call from a current student at my Alma Mater, St. John's University (SJU) in Collegeville MN asking me for a donation to their annual fund. In past years, although funds around my house are generally scarce, I've tried to give what I can because I really enjoyed my time there and appreciate the education I received while pursuing a mathematics degree there.

This year I spent some time talking to a very nice young freshmen student at SJU and waited for him to ask me the inevitable question regarding donations. This year instead of just donating the money I said, "I'd be happy to give you $100 this year if you can tell me: Has St. Johns signed the Mantatum?"

The young student, "The What?" (this is the response I expected)

"The Mandatum essentially states that theology professors will not teach as fact anything contrary to the Catholic faith" I replied.

The young student, "Let me see if I can find out, hold on"

After a brief pause he returned, "No one here knows, but if it's something that most universities do, we're sure that we have"

Not likely I thought, and not wanting to berate this poor soul any more than necessary I responded, "I'll tell you what, mail me the forms for donation. In the mean time I'll do my own research to determine the status of the Mandatum at SJU and if it's signed, I'll send in the check"

That worked for him and our conversation ended. Finding the status of the Mandatum was not easy, but I did find this list put together by the National Catholic Register. SJU is not on the list. I searched SJU's web site and found some conversations regarding the Mandatum, but all indications were that they had more problems with it than there were inclinations of actually complying with it.

Yesterday I received the mail regarding my pledge of $100 for SJU. I did not write them a check. Instead I wrote the following letter and put that in their reply envelope (used my own stamp) and sent it back:

To whom it may concern,
It would appear that St. John's University has not complied with the Mandatum of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in reference to the Code of Canon Law 812 approved in June of 2001. If you can provide evidence that St. John's has complied with the Mandatum and required all theology professors to sign the Mandatum as well, I will be happy to send you the $100 I have pledged. Until that time I must withhold payment

Thank you
Franklin Peach '96

I have no pretence that it will do much good, but if we can get more catholics refusing to donate to their Catholic Alma Mater on the same grounds we might just be able to have an effect. In reality this is not something that they are just suggested to do. It is a mandate (that's where the word Mandatum comes from) and I would hope that our Bishops start holding our university's feet to the fire (so to speak) and maybe if they remove the word 'catholic' from a university or two it would get many of the others to comply.

For reference Canon 812 states: "Those who teach theological disciplines in any institutes of higher studies whatsoever must have a mandate from the competent ecclesiastical authority."

And the Mandatum by the USCCB states in part

The object of the Mandatum is the content of the professor's teaching, and thus the Mandatum recognizes both the professor's "lawful freedom of inquiry" and the professor's commitment and responsibility to teach authentic Catholic doctrine and to refrain from putting forth as Catholic teaching anything contrary to the Church's magisterium [emphasis added]

That's not so much to ask is it?
Here is the full text of the Mandatum

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Homeschool Socialization

I just found this great cartoon from Inflatable Studios:

It's not so much funny, as just plainly true.

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Anne of Green Gables

The third book I decided to read which was recommended by A Thomas Jefferson Education (TJEd) was Anne of Green Gables and to be brutally honest, I was disappointed. I found Anne quite often to be annoying and found my self skimming through many of her rambling soliloquies. Many (especially those of the female gender I suppose) may find her apt to talk ad nauseum to be one of her most enduring qualities, I however did not.

I discovered that it was difficult for me to continue reading once the characters had been established, that is I had no motivation to continue reading as there appeared to be no underlying plot to the book. Each chapter was it's own story and there was very little connecting one chapter to the next, so after you finished a chapter it's easy to put the book down and not be in the least bit curious was was going to happen next. After reading about 3/4 of the book, I must have put it down for two weeks as I did not care was was going to happen next, nor did it seem to matter as the next chapter was just as likely to be the same as the last one: Anne would get into some minor scrape which would be resolved in one way or another by its conclusion.

Having said that, I must conclude that I was glad I did finish it. The last two or three chapters were by far the best of the book and they did bring the conclusion of the book to a wonderful little ending. Keeping with my policy of not posting spoilers, all I will say about this is that it was nice to see the person that Anne grew into. I started the book with the hope of understanding girls just a little bit better as I have two daughters of my own. I think that in the end I was successful in that, at least to some degree, however I'm not sure that I could stand living in a young girls world for any sustained length of time

Finally the theme of Education was again in this book (another reason I'm sure it was selected by TJEd) although it only really displayed it's importance late in the book (another reason I enjoyed the ending) I'm not sure that for me it was worth the first 250 pages to get to.

If you are still so inclined you may Get the Book Now

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Let's get Physical

My fetching wife has been homeschooling our children since Zach started kindergarten some 5 years ago. As a 'homeschooling dad' I have been relegated to picking up an occasional book off the floor that need to be put back on the book shelf, or brought in for 'consulting' work when discipline is a problem. Other than that my better half has taken on all of the heavy lifting. This year for the first time I have been brought into the class room as a 'substitute teacher' for one subject, two nights a week (plus a few various outings, to be sure). My task: Teach Physics to our 9, 7 and 5 year-old.

After Reading A Thomas Jefferson Education (Read more about that here), the last thing I wanted to do was get a text book and start throwing equations at them. My goal is to get them to start wondering about Physics, ask questions about the world around them and then be excited about finding the answers. I decided the best approach would be to discover the world along with the great scientists themselves and we should begin at the beginning. We are therefore starting out by reading Archimedes and the Door of Science and after two sessions things are going well. I hope to get them excited about the same things Archimedes was excited about and lead them up to the Copernicus and Ptolemy controversy so as to contrast their thinking. Then move on to Galileo and Newton. I plan on being flexable enough so we can move in directions that they are excited about; so I gave my first assignment: To Wonder. Wonder about how the world works. Ask questions about the things they see. Each of them are to bring 5 questions about how the world works and I plan on taking few of those questions and exploring the solutions with them. By the end of the year I have a modest goal of having them (at least the older two) understand a few concepts like D=Vt (where D=distance, V=Average velocity and t=time) and F=MA (where F=Force, M=Mass, A=Acceleration). Mind you I don't want them to memorize them, I want them to understand them and actually go through the process of deriving them.

That's my goal. I'll post updates on how things are actually going as the year progress.

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The Chosen

The second book I chose in my continuing effort to provide my children with A Thomas Jefferson Education was The Chosen by Chaim Potok, which I read with great enthusiasm. This is a wonderful story about two boys who befriend each other despite their clash of cultures.

While I enjoyed the story and the excellent way Potok uses a common baseball game and slight tragedy to quickly engage the reader, what I found most delightful was the relationships that were developed between the Boys and their fathers and the respect - even without a relationship - between the fathers themselves. Also even without the story and relationships, the backdrop of Jewish New York city during and immediately after WWII was a great time to see these young men grow up in and I found that I enjoyed seeing that period of history from a Jewish - actually two completely different Jewish - perspectives. The origin of the Jewish State in Israel was not something I spent a lot of time thinking about, and it made a great backdrop to the climax of The Chosen.

I was introduced to the Jewish sect of Hasidim, and to the importance of the Talmud to Orthodox Jews, and to that I am grateful. As a christian I consider myself a spiritual Jew as God Chose the Jewish people to make His original covenants with. I would like to study Jewish culture and different and opposing sects some more.

If you are considering this book but are not interested in Judaism, please do not let that scare you away. While it is pervasive it is certainly not overpowering nor does it assume any previous religious instruction in either Judaism or otherwise.

Finally this book once again carries a prominent theme of Education. The two main characters Reuven and Danny become great scholars through hard work and dedication. They each know what they want and where their talent lies even though it may be difficult and have some difficult moral questions that appear as roadblocks at times. All the great characters in this book are well educated. And I suppose it would be difficult to have a great character without a similarly great education.

My only complaint, if it can be one, is that the book is too short. I would have welcomed reading even more detail about Reuven and his relationships with Danny and his father. I would have loved to get a better understanding of the motivations for the conflicts developing in Israel at the time. And the end was a little abrupt.

In the end it was a great story that gave the reader much to think about. I recommend that you Get the Book Now.

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The Lonesome Gods

The Lonesome Godsby Louis L'Amour was my first foray into a Thomas Jefferson Education (TJEd) of which I blogged about earlier. First of all I must confess, I almost never read fiction any more. I have found that what little reading I do, I would rather learn something then be told a good story (especially when good stories are hard to come by). However after reading a TJEd I am starting to see the value fiction can have if it is done well. I only state this because I like to give anyone who happens upon this full disclosure of where I am coming from before they read my review. Also, I will not put any spoilers into my reviews.

Let me state for the record that I very much enjoyed reading this book. There is a lot of majesty that the author has regarding the desert and the old west and it comes ringing through the pages of the book. I also became very attached to the main character Johannes Verne who's life we get to follow from age six to about 18 or 20. There were several wonderful characters in the book all of which I thought were beautifully portrayed although they did seem a bit 'larger than life' at times.

I was encouraged with several wonderful life lessons scattered throughout the book like this one:

"Is something wrong?"
"It is never easy to realize you have been a fool," I said.
"If you have done something foolish and realize it, then you are not quite the fool you were" (P 317)

and this:

"You are a hero!"Miss Nesselrode said positively.
Papa smiled at her."It is an empty word out here, ma'am. It is a word for writers and sitters by the fire. Out here a man does what the situation demands. Out on the frontier we do not have heroes, only people doing what is necessary at the time. " (P 30)

Johannes is constantly evaluating and re-evaluating his position and life, how many of us do the same? We see how he becomes a man and an excellent one through his self-education using the classics (although that point was more implicit than explicit) and his constant self-evaluation and his refusal to be mastered by fear.

Now all of that I enjoyed however I must critique the book as well. I found that although the climax buildup was riveting (and there were several hours of reading where I could not put the book down), the ending was somewhat disappointing as the author felt the need to tie absolutely every aspect of the book into a neat little bow. He brought virtually every character we ever met (or heard of) back into the ending of the book. I found that highly improbable and a little annoying. It seemed to me to be too much like the ending of a Seinfeld episode where all the story lines tend to converge at the end. (Not that I'm comparing the story to a Seinfeld story) Others may think it's clever, I find it improbable.

I also struggled early in the book as the six year old Johannes acted much closer to 17 than any child I had ever met, but I took that with a grain of salt as maybe six-year-olds of the time (and this one more than even those) were apt to be more mature then the ones I have taught on the soccer field. Still I found that difficult to believe

The characters all tended to be black or white. The Bad guys were too bad and the Good guys were too good. There were very few moral struggles and what few ones there were were over with quickly.

Lastly the book kept switching between 1st and 3rd person. Now I know I am being picky, but that started bugging me too. I'm no author but I always thought that was taboo.

All in all this was a good book, I'm happy to have read it, and I recommend it to anyone who is looking for a good moral and uplifting story with characters they can get into. You will not be disappointed until you read the last words and realize that you cannot read any more about your new friend Johannes Verne.

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Our Schizophrenic Culture

I'm sure you've heard of similar cases like this one about Jessie Davis, where tragically a pregnant woman is killed along with her unborn child and the murder is charged with dual counts of homicide.

I would think that it goes without saying that this is completely absurd in a culture that believes in the evils of abortion on demand, if it wasn't actually happening. I therefore (apparently) need to comment. This type of thing shows how desperately we need people in our culture who have the ability to think, and is a glaring example as to the fact that our education system is only producing people who know what to think, not how to think. The idea that an unborn child is a human only when it suits our own interests would be an impossibility in a culture of thinking people.

How desperately does our culture need a TJEd now?

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A Thomas Jefferson Education

I never thought I would read a book that would change my life, but A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the Twenty-first Century by Oliver Van DeMille will. I always knew there was something wrong with the education system in the United States. I can remember going through public High School hating every minute and realizing that I was not really in a School, I was in prison. I didn't know why I hated it or why I didn't study hard (even though I loved learning). And now with my own children I thought that the solution was simply to reproduce the public school system within my own home via Homeschooling.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

A Thomas Jefferson Education (TJEd) is about giving children the access to the type of education that will live up to their greatest potential, not throwing our children on a conveyor-belt by shoving stuff into their brains under the threat of punishment so they can regurgitate it back to us. How can we teach our students how to think if we are constantly teaching them only what to think! If we want our children to become great men and women we must introduce them to the great men and women of the past through reading the classics and we (teachers/parents) must stop being educators and become mentors to our students.

The theme throughout this book is Classics and Mentors. This is the key to a TJEd. Great men and women become great through coming in contact with the great men and women of the past, through the Classics and they are encouraged through mentors who encourage discussion, writing and role-playing amongst the students.

So you may be wondering, How will this change Frank's life? He's not the one in school. The 'problem' (if you will) with the TJEd is not that it is complicated, it is incredibly simple, it's just hard work. If you want to bring a TJEd to your students then you must become the mentor and you must read the classics and study just as hard if not harder than the student. Great teachers do not Educate, they inspire students to educate themselves. In order to inspire the Teacher needs to set the example and be excited about learning. This is where I need to change my life. I need to become a great teacher and mentor in order to inspire excellence in my children.

Anyone who is a teacher (either in public, private or Homeschool setting) or parent is doing a great disservice to themselves and their children/students by not reading this book. It's not long, and if you disagree or think it will be too difficult that's fine, but to remain ignorant is simply unacceptable.

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