END COMPULSORY EDUCATION

Though the only real hope for American education is privatization, public education isn't going anywhere over night. Jack Batson, a career teacher and former city councilman for Fairfield, CA -- about 20 minutes from the YAL@DHS Chapter -- wrote an excellent editorial for the Vacaville Reporter in light of a coming education reform bill from thegovernator's administration:

So we're going through another "education reform," because "our schools have failed." Well, here we go again.

Pardon the cynicism, but haven't we seen a goodly number of these crusades before? When I first went into teaching in 1971, we were in the midst of the first great convulsion of educational reform. You may remember the books that fueled that long-ago fire: "Why Johnny Can't Read" and "Teaching as a Subversive Activity."