Mary Rice Hasson - Get Out Now: Why You Should Pull Your Child from Public School Before Its Too Late

Copyright 2018 by Mary Rice Hasson and Theresa Farnan

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, website, or broadcast.

Regnery Gateway is a trademark of Salem Communications Holding Corporation

Regnery is a registered trademark of Salem Communications Holding Corporation

Cover design by John Caruso

Cataloging-in-Publication data on file with the Library of Congress

ISBN 978-1-62157-646-4

e-book ISBN 978-1-62157-754-6

Published in the United States by

Regnery Gateway

An Imprint of Regnery Publishing

A Division of Salem Media Group

300 New Jersey Ave NW

Washington, DC 20001

www.RegneryGateway.com

Books are available in quantity for promotional or premium use. For information on discounts and terms, please visit our website: www.Regnery.com.

To our families, with love

It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.

Frederick Douglass, abolitionist and statesman

T his is a book about our children and their future. Its also about Americas future, for the two are inextricably linked. Its a story of two competing visions of the human person, of education, and of the purpose of life.

The millennial generationroughly speaking, those born between 1982 and 2004has largely replaced faith with religious indifference or practical atheism. Some of them dont even know if they are male or female. They embrace progressive ideology with growing fervor. And the next generationour most recent high school graduatestilts left in even greater numbers. At what point does this spell disaster?

Its time for an honest conversation about why we are losing our kids. Why are the children of patriotic Americans ready to believe the worst about their country? Why are the sons and daughters of committed believers becoming moral relativists and nones? Why are the children of well-grounded adults growing up unsure of who they are in the most basic sensewhether they are male or femaleeven as they embrace the mandates of identity politics?

They are embracing progressivism with a speed and uniformity beyond anything we have seen in past generations.

The cause of this crisis is something no one wants to talk about. Its the elephant in the room. Its the public schools.

Nearly nine out of ten children in America are educated in public schoolsschools that woo, win, and launch the next generation of progressives. As Andrew T. Walker writes,

The modern liberal impulse is one that sees government schooling as the apex of citizenship, but also, more fundamentally, as a form of secular discipleship. Education is designed to be comprehensive in nature. It forms, habituates, teaches. Abraham Lincoln himself is quoted as saying that the philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next. Liberals see public schools as the fertile ground for Resistance training 2.0....

They are succeeding. Public education is the common thread in the childhood of most Americans. It has a massive influence, affecting over fifty million children each year,

The problem with public schools is not the rank and file personnel. We wont solve it by hiring teachers and administrators who are sympathetic to American ideals, including freedom of speech and religion. Many dedicated and talented teachers and principals work hard to educate, not indoctrinate, the next generation. Many of them are conservatives and religious believers themselves. As well discuss in more detail, however, they are not calling the shots in Americas public schools. They have neither the leverage nor the authority to make Americas schools great again. And neither do ordinary parents.

Progressives know that parents have little influence over public education and even less power to shield their own children from erroneous or biased lessons and materials. Government schools are no longer accountable to the families they serveat least on the big questions. In the view of progressive educators, concerned parents are the opposition to be resisted. School boards, superintendents, and teachers follow the lead of the activists, bureaucrats, unions, tech titans, academics, and litigators of the left and the courts that serve as their enforcers. The truth is that nearly everything in Americas public schoolsthe culture, discipline, curriculum, hiring practices, school policies, even the names of schools themselvesis determined by progressive ideologues, both inside and outside the school systems.

But didnt the election of 2016 promise change? Whatever changes may be in store for Americas domestic and foreign policies, the sad fact is that no president can loosen the lefts grip on public education.in the faceless educational bureaucracy but in our homes, churches, and local communities.

Public education has been incredibly successful in one area: churning out youthful progressivesgrowing numbers of men and women in the grips of existential confusion, perpetual victimhood, and political intolerance. Our childrens shift toward progressivism begins well before college. The system takes full advantage of their most formative years in early elementary school, and the indoctrination continues through high school. Thanks to Americas public schools, they show up to college already prepped and ready to play on the progressive team.

Every philosophy of education begins with a vision of who we are and why we are here. What does it mean to be a human person? And what is the purpose of our lives? Traditionally, education in the West was ordered to childrens moral, spiritual, and intellectual development, helping them learn what is true and what is good. The child who has a sense of what is good and true is better equipped to take everything learned in the classroom and use it to pursue a good, happy, and productive life.

The progressive educational philosophy, based on the theories of John Dewey (18591952), is radically different. Dewey believed that objective truth is unknowable. All we can say is that an idea is warranted (as opposed to being true ) if it has practical utility, and the only question is whether something is socially useful, rather than whether it is objectively right or wrong. An atheist and a materialist, Dewey rejected the idea of human nature, believing instead that the child is socially constructed, shaped by experiences and the social context within the school. The school, then, is the ultimate instrument of social reform, able to shape future generations according to whatever society deems to be socially desirable goals.

What would you expect an educational system based on this philosophy to look like? You would expect it to be run from the top down by the progressive elite. You would expect a reliance on experience as the primary source of knowledge. You would expect peer instruction, with teachers as facilitators. You would expect parents to be marginalized, while their children are formed according to the values and norms of the prevailing culture. You would expect moral reasoning to be governed by social utility, with a heavy dose of relativism to boot. In short, you would expect our current system of progressive education.