To this writer, and a good many of his friends on the Right, the best way to reform the public schools is to get the government out of the education business. Most of us believe that a government education system is incompatible with the principles and needs of a free society, in which educational freedom should prevail. John Taylor Gatto, after spending nearly 30 years teaching in public schools, has been one of the strongest critics of the whole concept of compulsory “schooling,” which he denounced in his devastating book, The Underground History of Public Education.

California has probably produced more educational failures than any other state in the union. Why? Well, let’s be blunt. They have the stupidest educators and politicians in the country. And this has been going on for a long time. Back in 1988, when Bill Honig, then-School Superintendent of California, and Francie Alexander, the state’s curriculum director, chose only whole-language reading programs for the state’s public schools, we knew that a literacy disaster was in store for the Golden State.

These days, if you want to enroll your child in a public kindergarten, you have to give proof that your child has had all of his inoculations. If not, your child will not be accepted. Which, I believe, is a good reason not to put your child in a public school. But if you comply with the school’s requirements, then don’t complain when your child becomes “learning disabled,” “functionally illiterate,” or acquires Attention Deficit Disorder.

According to the latest news from our bureaucrats in Washington, agents answerable to the U.S. Department of Agriculture will now be inspecting parent-prepared lunch boxes to make sure that children are being fed a lunch in their schools in compliance with government standards. If the parent’s lunch is rejected, the child will be required to eat what the school cafeteria deems appropriate and pay for it.

It is said that the dinosaur had a tiny brain in a huge body, which undoubtedly contributed to its extinction. This huge body also required an enormous amount of food for its survival. The public education establishment has the same characteristics: small brain, huge body, enormous appetite for taxpayer money — its only means of survival.

T^{he dictionary defines “boondoggle” as: “work or activity that is wasteful or pointless but gives the appearance of having value.” And President Obama's Common Core Standards education boondoggle is going to cost billions of dollars, which everyone involved — educators, administrators, career counselors, assorted federal bureaucrats, textbook writers, and textbook publishers — will be more than happy to rake in.}

What is a good teacher? How do you recognize that rare individual? One of the problems Bill and Melinda Gates have had in making grants for education reform through their billion-dollar foundation is that no one seems to know what makes a good teacher. Indeed, Gates stated: “The single most decisive factor in student achievement is excellent teaching.” But no one could tell him what made a good teacher. But since I spent 12 years — 1932 to 1944 — in public schools, I think I have a good idea of what a good teacher is, and I wish to pass on to Bill and Melinda and the coming generation of teachers some of the wisdom I have acquired.

In my last column I stressed the need for the adult, self-teaching reader to be able to break up multisyllabic words into their syllables, so that the reader could see the phonetic structure of the word. The sight reader tries to find little words that he can recognize in multisyllabic words, which might give him a hint of what the word says. He is looking for a small, recognizable picture in the big word. But because that method is so inefficient, the reader is more likely to misread the word.

Can a dyslexic actually cure himself of his reading disability? Yes. Anyone who wants to do so can learn how English's 26 letters stand for 44 irreducible speech sounds, just as anyone who wants to learn to read Russian would have to learn to recognize the 32 letters of the Russian alphabet and the sounds they stand for.

Some time ago I received a letter from England that was written by an intelligent, accomplished and motivated adult who had a “reading problem.” He had been taught to read by the look-say method and exhibited the usual symptoms of dyslexia, and he wanted to know how to cure his disability.