Lynda

From author Linda Dobson.

Lynda
----- Original Message -----

> FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION AS YOU CELEBRATE INDEPENDENCE DAY.
>
> The Declaration of Educational Independence
> by Linda Dobson
>
> 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 harrass 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.