My own particular political leanings lend to seeing state run media to be a bad thing. Freedom of speech is the ability to express your views and be heard without government repercussions. This means that while there is a state-run media (as in they have their own media for releasing press releases, etc...) the media itself is not state run.
This is an important matter, probably the only thing I will post today. And one of the few times (in recent memory) I am sharing my own thoughts on the matter rather than relaying it from somewhere else. Read on in the fold...
However there is a state run media with mandated attendance to its messages. It is an iron hand, tightening its grip. We, as adults are without its grasp but not so for our children. What started as welfare, state run schools are becoming something we would never dream of in a free America, state run schools are becoming mandated state media.
Named after the man who coined how absolute power corrupts, the Acton Institute reports on this trend (saving me a number of posts I was planning). It is the war between home schooling and state schooling.
At one point the issue is simply over credentialed teachers. Which is to say that a college graduate parent is not qualified to teach an elementary school child ... but how and why? Even a high school graduate should be able to walk their children through the elementary school material. Perhaps that speaks to the poor state of state credentialed education. Perhaps that speaks to the additional training in some orthogonal process of teaching beyond the material curriculum itself.
What I read though is a battle between parent and the state as to who will be the guardians of the childhood education. This is not so much a matter of neglect or nourishment, though schools are feeding almost three meals a day to many children. It is not about fearing mandated medical treatments such as vaccines, or municipal fluoridated water. It is much simpler and more direct than that. It is just those impressionable minds, and who is responsible for bringing them up to be healthy and happy individuals who know better how not to hurt each other, and take care of themselves. It is a matter of self-governance and the right to govern our own families. To educate our children in ways which are probably higher quality than the state provides, in its underfunded, gang infested, ever grade inflated, poorly performing public schools.
It is a matter of family. And what it means to be a parent, and who is the real parent of our children.


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