When progressives talk about public education in America, you are supposed to see it as something positive. The history of American public education is truly evil. Which isn't surprising since public education is financed by theft (taxes). Bigotry against Catholics, with the help of the Klu Klux Klan (photo above is Ashland , Oregon in the 1920's), and the Democratic party provided the winning combination in Oregon in eliminating private education. Economic historian Murray Rothbard reports :
The most ambitious attempt by the public school partisans to maximize their control over the nation's children came in Oregon during the early 1920s. The state of Oregon, unhappy even with allowing private schools certified by the state, passed a law on November 7, 1922, outlawing private schools and compelling all children to attend public school. Here was the culmination of the educationists' dream. At last, all children were to be forced into the "democratizing" mould of uniform education by the state authorities. The law, happily, was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1925 (Pierce v. Society of Sisters, June i, 1925). The Supreme Court declared that "the child is not the mere creature of the State," and asserted that the Oregon law clashed with the "fundamental theory of liberty upon which all governments in this Union repose." The public school fanatics never tried to go that far again. But it is instructive to realize what the forces were that attempted to outlaw all competing private education in the state of Oregon. For the spearheads of the law were not, as we might expect, liberal or progressive educators or intellectuals; the spearhead was the Ku Klux Klan, then strong in the northern states, which was eager to crush the Catholic parochial school system, and to force all Catholic and immigrant children into the neo-Protestantizing and "Americanizing" force of the public school. The Klan, it is interesting to note, opined that such a law was necessary for the "preservation of free institutions." It is well to ponder that the much-vaunted "progressive" and "democratic" public school system had its most ardent supporters in the most bigoted byways of American life, among people anxious to stamp out diversity and variety in America.For more on this subject , click on this article from Professor Lloyd Jorgenson. While the public education lobby has shed its' Klu Klux Klan association : it's hard not to notice it hasn't stopped it's bigotry against the Catholic Church on their views on marriage. For a modern day look at how Education Secretary Arne Duncan got in touch with his inner "Klu Klux Klan" ,check out this amazing story on "separate but equal". Racism really does live in public education.
