Linda Dobson

Happy holiday...
Linda
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THE DECLARATION OF EDUCATIONAL INDEPENDENCE

WHEN in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for Families to
dissolve the
Educational Bands which have connected them to a faltering Society,
and to assume among the
Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws
of Nature and of Nature's God
entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires
that they should declare the causes
which impel them to the Separation.

WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life,
Liberty, and the Pursuit of
Happiness?That to secure these Rights, Education is instituted among
Men, deriving its just Powers
from the Consent of the Educated, that whenever any Form of Education
becomes destructive of these
Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to
institute new Education, laying its
Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form,
as to them shall seem most
likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will
dictate that a Public Education
System long established should not be changed for light and transient
Causes; and accordingly all
Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while
Evils are sufferable, than to
right themselves by Abolishing the Public Education System to which
they are accustomed. But when
a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same
Object, evinces a Design to
reduce them under absolute Government Control, it is their Right, it
is their Duty, to throw off such
Public Education System, and to provide new Guards for their future
Security. Such has been the
patient Sufferance of these Families; and such is now the Necessity
which constrains them to alter
their former Educational System. The History of the
Government-Controlled, Public Education
System is a History of repeated Injuries and

Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an
absolute Control over these Families.
To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World.

THE GOVERNMENT has refused its Assent to Freedom in Education, the
most wholesome and
necessary for the public Good.

IT has forbidden its Children Freedom of immediate and pressing
Importance...

IT has refused Freedom for the Accommodation of large Numbers of
Families, unless those Families
would register with the State, a violation of freedom and privacy to
them, and formidable to Absolute
Control only.

IT has called together the Nation's Children at Places unusual,
uncomfortable, and distant from the
warmth and nurturance of their Parents, for the sole Purpose of
fatiguing them into Compliance with
its Measures.

IT has dissolved Alternatives repeatedly with its unceasing
bureaucratic requirements, for opposing
with manly Firmness its Invasions on the Rights of the People.

IT has refused for a long Time, after such dissolutions, to cause
other Alternatives to be carried out;
whereby the Educational Powers, incapable of Improvement, have
returned to the failing System at
large for their exercise; the Family remaining in the mean time
exposed to all the Dangers of Invasion
from without, and Convulsions within.

IT has endeavored to prevent the True Education of the Population of
these States; for that Purpose
obstructing the Natural Process of Learning; refusing to pass others
to encourage their Individual
Efforts...

IT has obstructed the Administration of True Education, by refusing to
recognize the Sovereignty of
Family.

IT has made Public School Employees dependent on its Will alone, for
the Tenure of their Offices,
and the Amount and Payment of their Salaries.

IT has erected a Multitude of new Laws, and sent hither Swarms of Its
Employees to harass our
People, and eat out their Substance.

IT has kept among us, often against the People's Will, Standing Armies
of Social Workers.

IT has affected to render the Education Establishment independent of
and superior to the Civil Power.

IT has...subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and
unacknowledged by our Laws;
giving its Assent to...Acts of...Legislation:

FOR quartering large Bodies of Compelling Troops among us:

FOR protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any
usurpation of Family Sovereignty
which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

FOR cutting off our Connection with True Education:

FOR imposing Taxes on us used to Oppress us:

FOR depriving us, in many Cases, of the Benefits of Family Time;

FOR transporting our Children for large blocks of their time;

FOR taking away our Family Autonomy, abolishing our most valuable
Family Connections, and
altering fundamentally the Forms of our Families:

FOR suspending our Parental Authority, and declaring itself invested
with Power to control for us in
all cases whatsoever.

IT has abdicated Control here, by failing us its Protection and waging
Educational War against us.

IT has plundered our Pocketbooks, ravaged our Family Lives, burnt our
Trust, and destroyed the
Lives of our People.

IT is, at this time, forging new Laws to compleat the Works of
Despair, Desolation, and Tyranny,
already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy, scarcely
paralleled in the most barbarous
Ages, and totally unworthy the Government School System of a civilized
Nation.

IT has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive in our Nation's
Classrooms, to become the
Competitors of their Friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by
their Hands.

IT has excited domestic Insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored
to bring on the Inhabitants of
our Nation, the merciless Conditioning, whose known Rule of Warfare,
is an undistinguished
Destruction, of all Ages, Sexes and Conditions.

IN every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in
the most humble Terms: Our
repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated Injury. A
Public Education System, whose
Character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is
unfit to be the Educational
Controller of a free People.

NOR have we been wanting in Attentions to our Legislators. We have
warned them from time to time
of Attempts by their very Government to extend an unwarrantable
Educational Jurisdiction over us.
We have reminded them of the Circumstances that brought us to this
point. We have appealed to their
native Justice and Magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the Ties
of our common Kindred to
disavow these Usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our
Connections and Correspondence.
They too have been deaf to the Voice of Justice and of Consanguinity.
We must, therefore, acquiesce
in the Necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we
hold the rest of Mankind,
Enemies in War, in Peace, Friends.

WE, therefore, the Families of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in
GENERAL AGREEMENT,
Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the
Rectitude of our Intentions, do, in
the Name, and by Authority of Sound, Sane Parental Consciousness,
solemnly Publish and Declare,
That these United People are, and of Right ought to be, FREE AND
INDEPENDENT FAMILIES,
they have full Power to levy Choice in Family Education, consider the
Family's Values and Time
Needs to choose the extent of participation in and support of the
Public Education System, contract
Alliances, establish Family Priorities and Values, and to do all other
Acts and Things which
INDEPENDENT FAMILIES may of right do. And for the support of this
Declaration, with a firm
Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to
each other our Lives, our
Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.