7.  AMERICA'S CLOSE CALL WITH EDUCATIONAL DISASTER
    by Rick Triplett 
    Special to TLE      http://www.webleyweb.com/tle/>     Issue 219

Education in The Land of the Free appears to have had a close call with
disaster. I have dredged the Sargasso Sea of cyberspace to uncover this
arcane bit of history, and I offer it to readers for your edification.
Since it is from the World Wide Web, you know it's true.

On cheap paper, once used as package wrapping and now brought to nobler
service, a Soviet idealist writes excitedly to his co-conspirator, a
"mole" within the Department of Education:

Dear Comrade Boris,

If we are to achieve the goals of the great Stalin, we must do so by means
of the only institution capable of gradually shaping the American mind over
the generations, namely schooling. My three-fold plan of (1) FUNDING, (2)
PROVISION and (3) COMPULSION will provide the three-way support required
for long-term stability. Like a stool, which is only stable if it has three
legs, my three-pronged plan will create a vast system that will be stable
enough to dominate the educational system of the decadent American people.
Within just a
couple of generations, nearly every American will be a product of the
system and will find it impossible to discern the shaping to which his
views have been subjected.

The first leg, Funding -- Government must extensively fund education. This
will squeeze private schools almost completely out of the market; only the
wealthy and the highly dedicated will have access to them. With the
regulations attached to the funds, control of staff and curriculum will
shift to central authority. If any counter-attempts are made to channel
funding only to families with low incomes, we must ignore or ridicule such
attempts. No
half-hearted effort to take over will work -- anyway, this is revolution,
not charity.

The second leg, Provision -- It is not enough merely to supply money; we
must get into providing the buildings and institutions too. Scholarships,
vouchers and tax credits will only make parents feel they have as much
right in choosing a school as they have in choosing a supermarket. (And
speaking of supermarkets, we needn't apply my plan to them: they will die
away naturally within a few short years, due to the inherent flaws of
capitalist piggery.) By establishing government schools and calling them
"free" we will be perceived as
compassionate and, eventually, as necessary.

The third leg, Compulsion -- We must make attendance at school mandatory.
This will prevent all but the most intrepid from escaping the system. More
importantly, people will grow to think of education as a right, and
students will come to see schooling as an obligation to endure rather than
a value to be sought. Such laws will also help shift responsibility of
preparing a child for life from the child's parents to the state: an
essential ingredient if we are to be at all successful in centralizing
authority. As for home schoolers, we must first question their competence,
then increasingly regulate them, and
eventually outlaw the practice.

Like the piles securing the wharves of our Marxist homeland, this new
system can be driven deeply and will rise high. I am sure you will agree
that my triple plan has much in common with a good stool. And that through
it, education in America has the potential of becoming a great pile --
higher and deeper than anyone would ever have dreamed.

Please let me know what you think, so I can assist you in our goal of
destroying America.

Comrade Ivan.

His compatriot in America wrote back, on nice stationery:

My Dear Ivan,

These people are miles ahead of you -- and I had absolutely nothing to do
with it! Digging their own graves they are, and of conspiracy I find no
sign anywhere. It's all so crazy, my mind just reels. I have given up the
Party and now have a decent job at Kroger's. Get a life.

Boris.

And that was the correspondence I discovered. What does it all mean?

As an educator experienced in both "public" and private schools,
I must say that these letters sound like fabrications. Rather than
historical truth, I imagine they were manufactured by some radical who
simply refuses to accept the world as it is.

What a fool, he.

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