Evaluating Government School Teachers

HARBESON: There’s a lesson to be taught here

> SOUTHERN INDIANA — Why are so many government school teachers upset at the idea of being at least partly evaluated according to the test scores of the students they are supposed to be teaching? Isn’t that their job — to cram government-mandated curriculum into each child’s brain so they can pass a government-approved test?

Evaluating teachers by the test scores of their students makes perfect sense considering the factory-style setup of the school system. Each widget, I mean student, moves along the assembly line and is molded according to strict specifications set by the administrators and politicians who control these government school factories.

So it’s certainly logical to verify whether or not the student-widgets match the specs before they move farther along the conveyor belt to the next laborer who performs the next step in the process.

How can government school teachers complain about this? After all, by accepting these jobs, they are actively supporting the factory model of education and if a one-size-fits-all evaluation is valid for the students then why shouldn’t the teachers also be judged on the one-size-fits-all evaluation method?

If the kids have to endure year after year of standardized testing, shouldn’t the teachers, who dutifully play their part in this compulsorily funded scheme (happily collecting the pay and benefits), also have to endure being evaluated according to how well the students do on these things?

Teachers do not think it’s fair to be evaluated on how the student performs on the test because there could be lots of reasons why a child might not do well. They don’t want to be judged based on the performance of another individual.

Yet teachers themselves push a common “real life” lesson on the students — group projects. I’ve heard many people complain about group projects they were forced to do in school. Everyone seems to have a story about a member of a group who did not do well with his or her part of the project and brought the final score down for everyone in the group. If this is valid “real life” experience for the students, then why isn’t it for the teachers? They’re all in this together, right?

The most common defense I’ve heard lately about kids who don’t do well is that it’s the parents’ fault. They are uninvolved, don’t care and don’t cooperate. This may indeed be a valid concern. But if it is, then the teachers can’t have it both ways. If they want to place the blame for low scores on the parents then they must also place the credit for good scores on the parents.

It’s one thing for teachers to say they don’t want to be evaluated in this manner and another for them to use unions and attempt to create barriers to prevent experimenting with this option. The whole idea of government unions is contradictory anyway. These unions are not fighting against “the man” — some capitalist pig of a business owner — they are merely making further demands on taxpayers who are already being coerced to pay their salaries in the first place.

However, there does not have to be a one-size-fits-all answer to the task of teacher evaluation. If we separated education from government and opened it up to the voluntary market, people who think standardized testing works well and would like to see teachers directly evaluated on those test results could set up and fund an organization built on that foundation. Those who don’t think standardized testing promotes learning could create and fund their own alternatives.

True education is unique to each individual and there are many different needs and desires within families. The most respectful way to help each family meet those needs is to set education free from government control so a wide variety of educational philosophies can flourish and compete. This would create unlimited benefits to society as education in general grows much stronger, healthier and more dynamic.

— Clark County resident Debbie Harbeson is tired of smelling the stagnant, stale air of government run factories called schools.

Updates on Three Items

HARBESON: These things come in threes

> SOUTHERN INDIANA — I have three items to discuss today. The first two are follow-ups to recent columns and the third item is about the Greater Clark County Schools hoping that lots of people in the area will take their eyes off the road while driving.

Linden Meadows

In response to last week’s column “The sad tale of Linden Meadows,” a reader who calls him or herself “M” sent in two replies to the newspaper’s comment section on their website. You can go to newsandtribune.com to read the full text of M’s comments, but there is one specific point I’d like to address here concerning the lawsuit over ownership of the land used for the project. M said, “The court’s 3-0 majority did not base its decision on anything having to do with eminent domain.”

After I saw M’s reply, I felt like I should read the opinion again. I didn’t want to though. I had already read the darn thing several times before writing the column. I was sick of reading it. But I grabbed a bucket and read it again anyway. I still stand by my contention that eminent domain played a part in the court’s decision.

But don’t take my word for it. Don’t take M’s word for it either. Read the opinion yourself at this link: http://tinyurl.com/linden-opinion

If you do, I would be very interested in hearing whether or not you think the court “did not base its decision on anything having to do with eminent domain,” as M claims.

Mayor Moore and Competition with Private Business

My column, “Fit to be tied,” about Jeffersonville Mayor Mike Moore introducing a new government funded program (Anchors A-Weigh) through his newly created Fitness Council sure caused some people to burn a lot of calories pounding on their computer keyboards.

Several commented on the newspaper’s website, but there was also a rather lengthy discussion on one of the local online community forums, ClarkCountyChatter.com. A few forum participants did not understand that the column was not specifically about Anchors A-Weigh. It was merely an example I used to discuss the actions of a local politician.

The reason I chose Anchor’s A-weigh was because Moore had publicly stated his concern about government competing with private business and then spent government money to fund a brand new program that does the exact opposite of the principle he claims to hold.

The direction is clear for any politician who truly does stand for the principle that government should not compete with private businesses: Do not spend government funds to create new programs that contain services already being offered by existing private businesses.

Greater Clark County Schools Billboard Advertisement

The final issue for today is about the Greater Clark County School board’s decision to spend $2,000 for a billboard promoting their government school system.

Lots of thoughts popped into my head after reading this, some I can even talk about in public. Here’s my first thought (and it came up when I saw New Albany-Floyd County’s billboard as well): “Are there really people out there, people capable of driving down the local interstates while reading billboards, who really might not know — until they see a large shiny advertisement — that these government-funded and government-operated school systems exist?”

Greater Clark’s board and school officials sounded like they were unsure whether this was a good move or not and this tentative attitude is certainly understandable. After all, they’ve held a monopoly on government funding for so long, I’m sure it’s a real chore to figure out what to do now that some rules of the education game in Indiana have changed to allow more schools to grab money that’s been coerced from taxpayers for education.

— Clark County resident Debbie Harbeson keeps a bucket handy because she never knows when she may have to read a government document. Write her at Debbie@debbieharbeson.com.

Indiana Vouchers and Special Interest Groups

Latest newspaper column...

HARBESON: A special interest in school funding

> SOUTHERN INDIANA — As I read about the Indiana State Teacher’s Association’s continued attempts to invalidate Indiana’s new voucher law, using funding of religion as a primary argument, I began to wonder if they feel kind of strange watching it play out in the courts. Do they notice the irony of relying on people who don fancy robes and claim the authority to interpret vague verses in documents written before any of us were born?

I doubt it. I don’t believe ISTA is really that upset over the religious aspect in the first place. The religious argument just provides a convenient means to try and get what they want, which is to avoid competition and keep the government money earmarked for educational purposes to themselves.

As a matter of fact, I’m sure that any ISTA supporter who has taken some time to think about it must secretly be at least a bit thankful that most of the private schools who accept vouchers in Indiana are run by religious institutions. After all, the religious objection helps to avoid using other arguments that can’t as easily mask their concern about losing their monopoly over the money.

If the voucher-accepting schools were overwhelmingly secular, then it would be much harder for ISTA, an organization that supposedly supports education, to object to a government program that increases educational options to meet a variety of individual needs.

On the other hand, I’m not so sure the motives of the voucher defenders are so great either. This group certainly includes people who are also happy to have various verses within the government bible we call the Constitution interpreted in their favor so they can get control of the funds.

One of the main points the voucher proponents use to defend against the religious funding argument is that vouchers are not given directly to private schools. They are given to individuals so it’s the family, not the government, who may make the choice to give the funds to a religious institution.

In other words, when the parent plays middle-man, the money is somehow cleansed of its true source. It is no longer considered money that has been coerced from those who may not wish to fund religious institutions. I’m not sure exactly how this cleansing process takes place — but I’ve never understood money laundering either.

Voucher proponents love to push the idea that it’s all based on private, individual choices and parents are supposedly granted complete independence in how they use the vouchers. There’s one problem though — parents are limited to options that have been specifically government-approved. This is not an independent choice.

Of course true independence can only happen when parents are spending their own money or funds voluntarily given to them by another individual/organization that places no strings on how the funds are spent. That’s what granting independent choice means — no strings.

Vouchers do not and cannot operate like that.

If we step back and look at the voucher controversy from a big-picture perspective, we can easily see that this battle is no different than any other government battle. There are two sides supporting various special interest groups who want control of government money.

ISTA works for teachers who benefit from government-run schools. Voucher proponents work for people who benefit from voucher-accepting businesses. Neither side seems concerned about the coercion of the individual at large who is forced to fund any of these government-approved educational options.

Both sides apparently accept that it’s valid and moral to coerce individuals to pay for the education of other people’s children and unfortunately, as long as no one works to end government involvement in education, this is what we get — special interest groups fighting over who gets access and control of the funds.

— Clark County resident Debbie Harbeson is part of a special interest group that is especially interested in getting rid of special interest groups.

Summer and Educational Freedom

This week's column.

HARBESON: Those uncontrollable summer goose bumps

> SOUTHERN INDIANA — This time of year I always experience honkin’ goose bumps — the kind that comes from anticipation. This happens as summer draws near because I know the compulsion and forced association inherent in government schooling will soon disappear.

Sure, it’s a temporary reprieve, but it’s still exciting to watch even a short-lived shift toward a more healthy society — summer is the one time of year kids are not treated like prisoners.

I love to watch what happens in the summer when all families of kids who fall under compulsory attendance laws regain temporary control over their lives and are free to make choices about where their kids spend their days. This freedom creates a situation where people in the community interact with each other on a voluntary basis and work together to meet various needs that may arise when compulsory schooling is temporarily absent.

In the summer, many families look for places where they can send their kids during the day, or for a week or more at a time, and in response to that demand, individuals, organizations and businesses offer options for those families. People in the community see the market demand that exists in the summer and they work to fill the demand.

In this atmosphere, families and especially kids, are treated differently. They become customers who are respected by the people who have activities to offer. Those who want to help families by offering various options will work hard to create opportunities that are inviting and enticing because the relationships are voluntary, not coercive.

Organizations and businesses offer a huge variety of programs and options in the summer. The offerings cater to the kids because there is no need to focus on meeting government-imposed requirements. There are day-camps, overnight camps, classes, special interest clubs, etc. As a matter of fact, so many options are available that collecting and organizing them has become one of the services offered to help families. Magazines and newspapers even build entire issues around summer activities for kids.

I get goose bumps looking over what is offered in the summer to families who are temporarily freed from compulsory attendance laws because the summer season proves what educational freedom can look like. It’s easy to see how educational options can exist without the stringent government compulsion and control we see the rest of the year.

These camps, activities and classes exist even though no one is compelled in any way. They are set up with the family, not government, in mind. During the summer, people are focused on making connections with each other and not on meeting government requirements, and families enthusiastically share options they have found to be valuable.

No matter what the focus might be of a summer activity, if the kid is enjoying himself, learning becomes simply a natural part of the experience. In addition, many of these options create opportunities for older kids, whether they are volunteers or employees, giving them lots of valuable experience.

The summer focus on children as individuals seems to keep people from fighting as much with each other over school board antics, teacher union contracts, state funding formulas and other conflicts that arise naturally from government control of education.

If you haven’t really thought about how society literally changes in the summer, why not put yourself in observation mode this year? See if you can notice the change that happens when the government-imposed compulsory attendance schedule ends. Observe how kids are treated by organizations that don’t compel attendance in the summer and compare that to how kids are treated by the government school system that compels not only attendance but funding too.

Maybe you will see what I see — that when the entire premise of helping kids learn changes from being government enforced to family controlled, people have no problem cooperating and interacting with each other and the community becomes loaded with a wide variety of offerings based on interests — which leads to learning that sticks.

Will there ever be a day when this kind of respectful and voluntary interaction between families and those offering educational resources happens all year long? Who knows, but I get goose bumps just thinking about it.

— Clark County resident Debbie Harbeson inadvertently disturbs the peace this time of year due to her honkin’ goose bumps. Write her at Debbie@debbieharbeson.com.

More on Compulsory Attendance Laws

Bueller?

— MOVIECLIPS.com

HARBESON: Here’s to open discussion

My column from last week, “Is this school or prison?” which discussed the problems associated with raising Indiana’s compulsory attendance age from 16 to 18, was very successful — so much so that it convinced a reader named Sandy to conclude that I am, indeed, a moron.

I’m glad to know that this person is no longer suffering a continual state of anxiety, as she struggled through her doubts, wondering if it was true. I feel good knowing Sandy can rest easy now.

I also heard from Kurt Fetz who wrote: “A hypothetical situation wherein an adult is forced to stay at a job for two years is not even remotely ‘similar’ to the education requirement age being raised to 18 — it’s not the same ballpark, it’s not even the same sport.”

I think Kurt is right because I neglected to consider one very important aspect for the employee — he’d still get paid. Which means the prison comparison is much more accurate. Thanks for helping me get clarity on that, Kurt.

Sandy and Kurt were not the only people who responded. Last week’s opinion caused a flurry of comments on the newspaper’s website that lasted several days. The most interesting part about the response is that this activity in itself provides several great examples of how education can work without government involvement.

First of all, people of all ages were participating and interacting with each other as they contributed to the discussion. There were no artificial separations or groupings of people according to their age. Teenagers, young adults and people in their 50s were pondering, sharing and discussing their views on a topic in which they shared a mutual interest.

Many people told personal stories about their educational experiences as teenagers. Others shared stories about people they know. These stories varied widely, clearly demonstrating why it’s so important to always look at education from the standpoint of the individual and not the collective.

Another way the responses show how education works in the real world is that information gathered in the context of daily life is much more effective than an artificially created lesson plan designed to be dumped into a student’s brain at a specific age. I saw this happen when several people displayed an ignorance of the journalism profession and the newspaper business because it led to the editor of the paper giving an impromptu lesson explaining the difference between a news article and an opinion column.

He sounded frustrated that people did not already understand the difference, which in itself also demonstrated that government compulsion does not necessarily match with everyone’s definition of an educated populace.

Another important aspect of education demonstrated by the comment activity is that people will do traditional academic activities with no compulsion at all. People voluntarily chose to read the column and some of those readers, including my friend Sandy, voluntarily chose to take time out of their lives to comment and participate in the discussion. No one compelled any of these people to read and write. They did so for their own individual reasons.

Everyone was free to read and respond and even though there are responses that seem to add little to the discussion, it was precisely because those questionable responses were there that encouraged other people to get involved. This process resulted in many thoughtful and respectful comments on the topic of government compulsion in education.

What if Sandy were compelled by the government to continue reading my columns, even after deciding that they add no value to her life? Would Sandy object to such compulsion? And if so, could she relate that experience to the experience of a teenager who has decided, for whatever reason, that a government school adds no value to the teen’s life?

Who knows how Sandy would react, the only thing we do know is that if she were compelled by the government to read my columns, the compulsion would not help Sandy at all.

Even a moron like me understands that.

— Clark County resident Debbie Harbeson feels compelled to put her moronic opinions on display often.

Schools Are Prisons

COLUMN NOTES: This one caused a stir in the newspaper's comments (go to the link to read them)...almost as wild as a prison riot!

Check out the photo to the left. Is it a school or a prison? Answer at end of column.

HARBESON: Is this school or prison?

Imagine you want to leave your current job. You have decided, for whatever reason, that the position is not meeting your needs.

Even if leaving might make life hard, and it’s quite possible you will have to endure negative consequences, you are at the point where leaving and getting on with your life is the best choice.

Now imagine that your employer says you can’t leave for two years.

Next, take this scenario and imagine yourself scoffing at your employer. Imagine yourself saying you’re going to leave anyway, knowing they can’t actually kidnap you and hold you hostage. But they respond by informing you that they can “turn you in” to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles who will revoke your driver’s license for the two years they want you to stick around.

This imaginary scenario is just too unbelievable isn’t it? It’s laughable to think that an employer would try to force someone to continue showing up at a workplace for two years after he gave his notice that he was going to leave.

Nothing even close to that could ever happen in real life, right? Wrong.

Since 2006, when the compulsory school attendance age was raised from 16 to 18, creepy scenarios similar to the one described above have been happening throughout Indiana. It is not a joke to say that schools are like prisons.

Why does the government refuse to let these teenage students leave? Surely government officials don’t think a person can benefit by remaining trapped for up to two years in the very institution that has failed to serve their needs.

What’s even worse is that teenagers who do decide to leave school without graduating already face the possibility of many negative consequences and yet government officials add more punishment by making it nearly impossible for them to get a job — the one thing that could actually help turn their life around.

Trying to prevent these young people from getting driver’s licenses and jobs is treating them worse than a felon just released from a “real” prison. As a matter of fact, interfering with their ability to get a job could be the first step that helps turn one of these kids into a felon in the first place.

It’s just amazing to me that government officials would be so vindictive to these young people who simply want to break free from a system that is not working for them. It’s as if the government wants to ensure that these kids fail.

Even if a school official is genuinely concerned, he or she must know that forcing a student to stay will not help. This continued coercion could even be downright dangerous for other students, teachers and school personnel because who can predict how a given individual might respond to this government bullying.

If a teenager, for whatever reason, decides it’s in his best interest to leave school, government officials should get out of his way so he can take responsibility for his life. Instead of looking for ways to force young people to remain in a place that does not serve their needs, school officials could be focusing their energy on creating a place that teens would actually attend voluntarily — imagine the schools being so inviting and useful that the schools had to work to get kids to leave, rather than forcing them to stay.

Imprisoning young people inside a system that they want to leave is a shameful way to treat fellow human beings. But hey, I guess if you can increase the compulsory attendance age and then brag about a lowered dropout rate, then it’s all worth it because obviously education has improved, right?

— Clark County resident Debbie Harbeson observes lots of creepy scenarios as she digs through government actions.

ANSWER TO QUESTION: This photo was taken by the Louisville Courier-Journal during the grand opening celebration for Charlestown High School.

Indiana Government Schools Doing Exactly What The Federal Government Wants

HARBESON: Leaving behind No Child Left Behind


CLARK COUNTY — It’s not necessary to be as clever as Sherlock Holmes, or for that matter to even use a magnifying glass, to clearly see that the No Child Left Behind Act was a misguided idea.

The passage of NCLB is one of the most uneducated decisions ever made by a group of politicians. And that’s saying a lot.

The clues that something was very, very wrong were there from the start and you didn’t even have to know the law’s details to figure this out. The very name provided the first clue.

Topping that off was the fact that Republican President George W. Bush pushed this increased federal involvement in education and worked with Democrat Ted Kennedy to make this political deal happen. This clue that something was amiss was more obvious than personally witnessing Colonel Mustard in the parlor whacking his victim on the head with the candlestick.

But of course the NCLB mess is exactly what “bipartisanship,” “compromise” and “working together” through the force of government will get you.

It was easy to figure out if you bothered to do the math. After all, when you take two political parties and add them together it does not equal smart, or even proficient. It only adds up to coercion.

These politicians actually behaved as if all they had to do is write stuff down on paper, throw in government force and the individual differences between human beings in ability, interests and motivation would disappear — if not immediately then certainly by 2014.

In reality though, the main thing the government mandates are accomplishing is to create a further perversion of education which is interfering tremendously with the natural learning ability and potential that exists within each individual child. Government mandates stifle creativity, innovation and do nothing to stimulate and encourage natural curiosity.

Since the passage of the legislation, there have been a few grumblings about NCLB. But now that the year of reckoning, 2014, is within the mathematical abilities of your average politician, the grumblings are getting even louder because they can see the trap they set for themselves.

Everyone is starting to run as fast as they can to get away from the federal government mandates. Or at least that’s what the various levels of government want us to think. But is that true?

Yes, the federal government, under the direction of the Obama administration, is now granting waivers to release states from NCLB mandates. And yes, Indiana has been granted one of these waivers. But what does this really mean?

Is Indiana being released because the state is already doing exactly what the federal government wants them to do in regards to controlling the education of the individual? The following may provide a clue — when Gov. Mitch Daniels heard that Indiana was granted a waiver, he said, “We have been closely aligned with the Obama administration on many elements of education reform.”

Does Daniels say this with any regret, apology or hesitation? No, he says this with pleasure and pride. So has Indiana been excused from the dinner table simply because it has already willingly swallowed everything the federal government and the Obama administration wanted Indiana to eat in the first place?

If Indiana is doing exactly what the federal government wants it to do, what are the implications? Will there be unintended consequences? Clearly standards and practices that meet federal government approval provides a strong clue that this situation is troubling and worth further investigation under the magnifying glass.

Unlike Daniels, I feel no pleasure at all in hearing that Indiana meets with the approval of the federal government. But then again, I do not accept any level of government control in education because that is the very antithesis of individual freedom.

— Clark County resident Debbie Harbeson has been searching for a politician who has a clue but has not been able to find one.

Worry Warts in the Indiana Legislature

HARBESON: Who’s worrying?
SOUTHERN INDIANA — Politicians sure seem to worry a lot. They’ve made the furrowed brow an art form, particularly during a legislative session when they introduce their bills that will supposedly fix the problems that worry them so.

For example, several state legislators are really worried about a problem concerning government education in Indiana. Their worry warts popped out immediately when these politicians found out that cursive writing is no longer a mandatory part of the government school curriculum.

I don’t know why they are so worried about this. If you know anything about the government schools, you know that teachers need to focus their limited time on other skills. Schools need to stop wasting time on cursive and focus on the single most important skill students need to succeed in today’s government school system in our modern age — learning how to correctly fill in answer bubbles with a No. 2 pencil.

(By the way, proponents of this law want to include private schools who accept vouchers. This is the second example I’ve found this legislative session proving that politicians will treat voucher-accepting schools exactly the same as fully funded government schools when creating new laws and regulations.)

Legislators are also worried about the ethics law that was passed a couple of years ago. Politicians say certain organizations that help pay their expenses for out of state trips should be exempt from this law because they are educational groups, not lobbyists, and legislators need to be educated on important topics.

Okay this one has me worried. Obviously Indiana has a bunch of woefully uneducated people who claim to be in charge because they seem to have no clue about how to use technology. I guess they’ve never heard of live online virtual conferences. I guess they’ve never heard of uploading video to the Web. I guess they’ve never heard of podcasts. I guess they’ve never heard of emailing pdfs and PowerPoint presentations. They must think their only alternative to a trip paid for by these “educational” groups is to read long reports written in cursive and sent through the U.S. Postal Service.

Alcohol purchases on Sundays provided another worry for some legislators, but not for long. They have no more worries for this year because the bill has been killed in committee. Part of the discussion centered on the lack of clear evidence that selling alcohol on Sundays would increase the tax revenue collected by the state. And if a legislative action doesn’t help the government collect more money, well, then they’re not going to worry about changing anything.

Hey, why the furrowed brow? You didn’t think the Sunday alcohol proposal was based on a foundational principle of freedom did you? I’m sincerely worried about you if you think individual liberty has anything to do with actions taken by the state legislature.

Finally, let’s talk about the worries of Southern Indiana legislator Rhonda Rhoads. During her campaign she appeared to be very worried about the taxpayer. I have several of her postcard advertisements and they all talk about how worried she is and how she wants to stand up for you, the taxpayer.

But now that she’s been elected she doesn’t seem quite so worried about all taxpayers. She is sponsoring a bill, known as the “parent trigger” that would convert a government school to a charter school if 51 percent of the parents vote for it. But when asked why this proposal does not include all taxpayers forced to support the school in question, Rhoads said the taxpayers without children wouldn’t know enough about what’s going on at the school.

In other words, you ignorant, uninformed taxpayers who have no children in a government school just don’t need to worry your pretty little heads about this politician’s proposed legislation. Just shut up and pay.

No wonder so many people worry when the legislature is in session.

Clark County resident Debbie Harbeson has been unable to find a set of worry beads strong enough to last her through an entire legislative session.

Year-Round School

NOTE: I wrote this for publication on Thanksgiving day and just realized I never posted it here. I guess I ate too much that day and just forgot about it.

HARBESON: Talking around the year-round subject

SELLERSBURG — Will you have the pleasure of interacting with school-age kids on Thanksgiving Day? If so, I have a suggestion for you — ask them how they feel about year-round school.

Be careful though. If they don’t know anything about year-round school, their first thought will be that you’re suggesting they attend school for more days of the year than they do now. The very idea would likely freak them out and you could end up with cranberries up your nose for even suggesting such a thing.

So make sure you explain that, at least right now, year-round school means a “balanced schedule.” The mandatory sentence they have to serve out for the crime of being a kid would still be 180 days, but the days off would be spread out somewhat more evenly throughout the year.

If you can get them to understand this before your nostrils fill up, great. Now you should be able to find out whether they would prefer to have most of their time off grouped together during the summer, or whether they would prefer taking time off throughout the year and have a shorter summer break.

If you ask more than one kid, chances are good that the answers will vary. Some will prefer to get the school year over with and enjoy the longer break and others would rather take more frequent breaks in smaller chunks of time.

Some kids will realize that the question is really a request to make a choice that isn’t really much of a choice at all. Fundamentally, the question is just a scheduling detail to these prisoners — I mean kids. Either way, they still have to “do the time.”

I bring this issue up not because I want everyone’s Thanksgiving Day celebration to be punctuated by having little red berries falling out of their noses, although the thought does kind of make me smile.

No, I bring it up because local government school districts are discussing the idea of moving to year-round schedules, mostly because they say it could lead to improved test scores.

Whether or not that’s true, and the data is mixed, school schedules are like everything else related to education — a singular choice mandated for all will never fit the needs and desires of each individual child.

There are possible advantages with year-round school though. This schedule could give kids more experience with real-life math because more frequent breaks provide many more opportunities to calculate and count down the days to the next break.

Year-round school would also help the problem of kids not retaining important lessons while enjoying a longer summer break. For example, year-round school might help kids retain the lesson that what they do outside of school during free unstructured time, while engaged in self-initiated and self-directed play, is not as important as what happens in school where information is injected inside their brains for the purpose of passing a government test.

There would also be more chances to remediate kids, particularly the ones who struggle because they would rather learn in their own way, at their own pace, sparked by their natural born curiosity. Yes, I imagine year-round school could be very useful in helping to retrain those troubled kids.

On the other hand, maybe neither schedule is the answer. Perhaps society should dump the compulsion and work on creating wonderful places that would draw kids in by choice. Places where kids are free to play, investigate, experiment and explore on their own terms. Places that immerse kids in a friendly, respectful environment — one that supports year-round learning rather than year-round schooling. Yes, there is a difference.

— Sellersburg resident Debbie Harbeson hopes she doesn’t end up with cranberries up her nose on this fine Thanksgiving Day.

ISTEP Testing Reports Make Me Yawn

HARBESON: Is this a test?

> SOUTHERN INDIANA — Every year when Indiana’s ISTEP testing scores are released, many people who support government schooling feel a rush of energy. They become excited and nervous, and expend that energy cheering for any data that can be defined as “success,” “improvement” or “progress.”

I usually feel a rush of energy too but it comes out in the form of a stretch and prolonged yawn. I can’t cheer because I don’t care about ISTEP test “success.” I care about education and learning.

I don’t cheer when success is defined by a government authorized and an approved standardized testing system. Pride at the state, district and individual school level over test scores only tells me one thing really: that those in the system are merely getting better and better at teaching to the test.

This measure of success is not something I would ever cheer about because I don’t cheer when I see young developing minds forced to suppress their natural curiosity to comply with arbitrary and subjective government mandates detailing exactly what they should be learning and when they should be learning it.

I don’t cheer when teachers feel they must teach to these specific standardized guidelines measured on the tests because I know it leaves very little, if any, time left to explore and learn about anything else.

A lot of energy is wasted on these misguided attempts to standardize a one size fits all education process while ignoring individual differences. The latest proof of this was in a recent story reporting on local results where a government school administrator pointed out how important it is to motivate kids to score higher and “learn what’s being taught.” He said it requires lots of energy to accomplish this.

But it’s not necessary to spend all that time and energy working to motivate kids to “learn what’s being taught.” All they need to do is stop thinking in terms of forced learning and flip the administrator’s comment. Instead of trying to motivate kids to “learn what is being taught,” turn this concept around and “teach them what they want to learn.”

Students are naturally self-motivated when they are already interested. Doesn’t it make much more sense for teachers and administrators to work with that natural energy rather than spending most of their days fighting against it?

If schools focused on individual student’s natural interests and real-life reasons to learn, there would be little need for elaborate standardized testing systems. People would realize that there are many ways to evaluate learning and the best ones focus on the student.

Imagine how different education would be and how much more everyone would learn if teachers and administrators actually collaborated with students to help them self-evaluate and assess for themselves whether they learned what they wanted to learn.

Since I don’t believe it actually accomplishes the goal, I’m not going to waste my energy cheering for standardized testing as a major method of forcing school accountability either. However, I do understand that this was bound to happen in a system based on compulsory funding, where individuals are not free to opt out.

As a result of government involvement in education, we have created institutions that are now almost completely focused on the continual testing and standardizing of students. This is producing young people whose main method of determining whether they should bother learning something or not is to robotically ask a single standardized question of their own: “Will this be on the test?”

And to me, this is nothing to cheer about.

— Sellersburg resident Debbie Harbeson is recuperating from injuries suffered during a recent prolonged yawn.

Mitch Daniels Fails to Acknowledge the Complete Truth about School Choice

COLUMN NOTES: After you read this column, let's have some fun and post a comment on what you think would happen if we had compulsory tire rotation laws.

HARBESON: Daniels’ education talk is tiring

> SOUTHERN INDIANA — During his State of the State address, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels was bemoaning the lack of school choice and made an unusual comparison.

He pointed out to the audience that our government does not tell families where to get their tires rotated, but we do tell families which school their children must attend.

Although this is accurate as far as it goes, Daniels failed to continue traveling along this road to tell the audience the complete truth. Instead, he took a sharp turn to the right.

If Daniels had continued traveling down the road he created with his analogy, he would have also pointed out that the reason government does not mandate and assign tire rotation sites is because government does not forcibly take everyone’s money for tire rotation purposes.

This is why there are no huge government tire rotation buildings, filled with lots of useless atrium space. This is why there are no powerful and controlling tire rotation employee unions who dictate the color of their lunch lounge. This is why there are no unending conflicts, disagreements and battles about the best way to go about rotating everyone’s tires. This is why we don’t have to endure politicians telling us about their latest ideas in how to reform our failing tire rotation services or how the tire rotation service providers could do better if only the car owners were more involved.

This is what our tires would look like if we had compulsory tire rotation laws:



Daniels said his proposed reforms of our education system are a matter of justice, but this statement is as devoid of truth as bald tires are of tread.

If he believed in justice, he could never accept and support the idea of a government compelling educational funding and attendance. Justice automatically excludes aggression against peaceful people.

Daniels is only promoting his version of government control over education. He and his carload of supporters are no different than teachers unions and other government school proponents in this regard.

Both believe in educational compulsion. Both ultimately believe that education of the individual must be controlled by government. Their battle is merely over how best to centrally plan the details of this compulsion.

For example, Daniels’ favored reform for this year, vouchers, does not solve the root causes of our problems in education. The compulsion does not disappear; the coerced funding only moves from one school to another.

Ignoring the problem of compulsory funding will never create a healthy environment for learning.

As a matter of fact, not only do voucher programs continue to rely on the false notion that coercion is necessary for education, they even continue to spread many other myths out there concerning education and learning.

Vouchers support the myth that there must be specific physical locations called “schools” for education to occur. Vouchers support the myth that there is such a thing as an ideal communal curriculum that takes precedence over individualized learning and that this curriculum can reliably be tested.

Vouchers support the myth that it takes a lot of money to learn how to read, write and manipulate numbers, when in reality it takes a lot of money to maintain a system built on a foundation of compulsory funding.

If Daniels really wanted to speak the truth to his audience about government education, he would not be making speeches extolling the benefits of his particular government reforms. He would be pointing out that compulsory funding and compulsory attendance laws are the root causes of our problems in education.

Instead, Daniels — like everyone else who benefits when people believe that government compulsion is necessary for education — just continues to steer around the truth.

— Sellersburg resident Debbie Harbeson believes if government interfered in the tire rotation business, everyone would end up driving in reverse every 6,000 miles.

Photo Courtesy Wikimedia.

School Vouchers: Education Stamps

HARBESON: We don’t need no education ... stamps

If you plan on following the upcoming legislative session in Indiana, I advise you to put on protective gear because it looks like school vouchers are going to be on the Republican agenda.

The idea of vouchers is not new, but has always been very controversial. To more easily understand why, we need to realize that the idea behind vouchers is no different than the idea behind food stamps.

Food stamps help the needy purchase food for their family, and vouchers, or education stamps, help the needy purchase education for their family.

Both are intended to help the needy improve their current situation, so any controversies surrounding each should be identical, but they’re not. This is because government controls education far, far more than it does food.

(This is strange for a society that says it values freedom. After all, the freedom to feed our minds is at least as important as the freedom to feed our bodies, isn’t it?)

Anyway, as it stands now, we do not have government food stores. We do, however, have government education stores; we’ve simply been trained by those in government to refer to them as “public schools.” These government education stores exist solely due to the initiation of force on others.

This is why it’s misleading when politicians like Mitch Daniels say that vouchers will introduce competition into education. To have anything close to true competition in education, all schools would operate under identical market-driven constraints. They would all use voluntary means to gain customers — just like all of our food stores do.

If all we had were privately run schools, then introducing vouchers, or education stamps, would have no more effect on the relative competitiveness of schools than food stamps do on food stores.

What’s even worse, in our current education system, it’s the people who usually express concern for the needy who end up getting in their way. Many of these people fight hard against education stamps for the needy because so many of them make their living off of the government schools.

Naturally, they don’t want to make it easier for their currently trapped customers to leave, so they want to severely constrain the use of education stamps.

We would see the same thing happening with food stamps if we had government food stores. But since we don’t, the needy can go to any store that is approved to accept food stamps.

Parents can buy grapefruit at one food store and then go to another store to purchase hamburger. They can even purchase seeds and grow their own food at home.

But no such freedom would exist with education, even if a school voucher program were passed by Mitch and his buddies because the lack of freedom in education has developed a system that, even in the private realm, is often an odd all-or-nothing venture.

For example, in our current system, a parent would never be able to take education stamps and purchase math services at one private school and go to another private school for reading.

And, of course, none of these families would be able to use vouchers to purchase items that would help them grow their own self-directed education for their individual family.

Therefore, the first step we need to take — if we truly do want to create and develop better educational opportunities for everyone — is to rid our society of these government education stores. We need a competitive private system for education just like we have a competitive private system for food.

When we’ve accomplished this separation of education and state, then we can focus on the problem of government food stamps and vouchers, which promote the myth that it’s moral to initiate force upon others to help the needy rather than using peaceful and voluntary means to do so.

— Sellersburg resident Debbie Harbeson enjoys the freedom of feeding her mind, but she does try to avoid too much salty language.

We Need an Education Santa

HARBESON: A wish list for Education Santa

CLARK COUNTY — Don’t you just love the spirit behind the idea of Santa? Santa cares about kids and enjoys asking them questions. Santa is very curious about what a child is interested in.

I wish this spirit could spread to the schools because we desperately need an Education Santa, someone who cares enough to ask kids what they want.

People say our education system is for the children but it’s not. We don’t let students have much say at all in determining what they will learn and how they will go about learning it.

The folks in control don’t bother to ask children questions that could give them information to help teach students what they’d like to learn. Instead, students must sit quietly at their desks while the adults continually fight with each other over what education means and how to make it happen.

It doesn’t take long for most children to learn this vital lesson: individual interests don’t matter. They are quickly smashed down as the system molds kids to fit inside identical boxes, where very specific skills are crammed into a very tight schedule. Then when these students are finally set free and expected to figure out what they are interested in, most of them don’t have a clue.

It’s not that the schools don’t ask kids questions. Schools are hyper-focused on asking kids questions. It’s just that those questions have nothing to do with the individual child. The questions and answers are predesigned and predetermined by those who think a child’s interest is irrelevant.

Some teachers understand this very well and object to being held to standards that are based on how well they get students to succumb to this process. They understand that to excel as a teacher in the current system is to turn out a robotic product that is nearly devoid of any natural curiosity and desire to learn. And it only gets worse as the child moves along the conveyor belt.

A skilled teacher would welcome merit pay in a situation where the child and teacher collaborate together on a topic the student wants to learn. But this is not the purpose of an education system based on the nasty combination of compulsory attendance and funding. Our system is really only looking for teachers willing to train students in the two essential elements necessary to keep the system going: conformity and obedience to authority.

However, for those who really want to, it is possible to play Education Santa and ask the children what they want. I must warn you though, whether you’re a teacher or a parent, if you do decide to play this part, you’ll soon discover that respecting children enough to ask them questions and take their answers seriously will put you at direct odds with the goals of the compulsory system.

The people in charge will likely fight you in any attempts you make to give more respect to the kids. Remember, the system isn’t built on the freedom and flexibility needed to really help a child learn what he’s interested in learning. So if you dare to play Education Santa, you’re probably going to have to climb up the chimney and out of the coercive system.

Rest assured, though, that plenty of other Education Santas are already out there flying around and they would be glad to share the varied resources piled high in their sleds. They’re all happy to assist because they know that helping a child learn by following his interests at his own pace is the best educational gift anyone can give. And it’s just as much fun for the Santas too.

— Sellersburg resident Debbie Harbeson slipped on some figgy pudding yesterday while chasing 10 lords a leaping at the company Christmas party.

Be True to Your School and Do Some Drugs!

HARBESON: Drug seizure funding is a drag

> SOUTHERN INDIANA — I don’t know how you feel about illegal drug use, but if you are currently against it and you also care about funding government schools, you may want to reconsider your position.

Here’s why: Indiana’s laws are set up so that the government schools can benefit from illegal drug trade through asset forfeiture laws. Of course, it’s kind of a bureaucratic process so a couple steps need to happen before the schools get any money from your illegal transactions.

First of all, your dealer would have to be caught so the government can seize his assets. Yes, that would put a crimp in your future support, but only temporarily. After all, we know from decades of fighting the drug war that someone else will quickly fill the void.

So that part’s really no big deal.

The hard part is the second consideration, making sure government officials actually follow the laws they set up for themselves. In Indiana, the law says that when a county seizes assets from a crime — and everyone agrees that most of these crimes are drug related — they are supposed to deduct the costs of law enforcement and then send the rest to the Common School Fund.

Now, some of you might think it’s kind of creepy to fund schools this way but it makes sense once you understand the drug war. Drug transactions are only crimes because government says so.

There is no victim needing restitution, so asset seizure only benefits the government that made the transactions illegal in the first place. Since this makes the drug war look like an unending profit-making scheme for the government, they have to direct some of the money to areas few will criticize.

But creating a law that tells government officials where to direct funds doesn’t mean they will actually follow it. Recently, a private law firm figured out that most counties in Indiana have not been depositing any money from asset seizures into the Common School Fund. This firm believes these counties are not following the law properly, so they filed suit.

The county prosecutors were completely offended. They said they certainly are acting properly and reminded everyone that the law says they can deduct law enforcement costs first and well, they can’t help it if it just so happens that in all the cases, the enforcement costs exceeds the value of the seized assets.

Supposedly, the law firm that filed the suit thought Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller would investigate this possible abuse of the law on behalf of the citizens. But Zoeller said he was going to defend the prosecutors instead.

Zoeller said there is a state law that says if a prosecutor is sued in connection with his job, Zoeller has to defend him. I know that sounds strangely cozy but, hey, it’s state law.

But even so, Zoeller figured out this was a sticky situation, so of course he’s passing the buck. He said the courts are not the proper place to figure out this problem. He said the state law is unclear and the prosecutors need more direction in determining how much to deposit into the school fund.

So this issue is apparently moving to the wise, all-knowing legislature. You know, the entity who already wrote the previous law that has professional lawyers all across the state confused. The legislature thinks they can come up with a formula, through the political process that will settle this once and for all.

And that will be just great because then those who participate in the illegal drug trade will be able to figure out exactly how many joints it takes to put another brick in the wall.

Sellersburg resident Debbie Harbeson bets that many readers of this column are now wondering how much you contributed to the common school fund over the years.

Homeschoolers Caught in the Crossfire

I made my first video on xtranormal.com. Wow it was really fun. I recommend that site for anyone who wants to have some fun writing scripts and making videos.

This video is in response to a controversy that is brewing in Indiana due to the increased concentration on dropout rates in government schools. Richmond Community Schools has been embroiled in controversy on this issue for some time now. You can read more about that here.

Here's the video I made in response to the controversy:

Sheeple In Training?

Does anyone else find this creepy?

Free the Children!

My Version of Project Management

Anyone remember me talking about the time I met the Motorhome Diaries Guys? It happened about a year ago and I included them in a column I wrote after their visit here.

Well now, two of these fellows, Pete Eyre and Adam Mueller, are taking to the road in an RV again, with a Project called Liberty On Tour.

Since I discovered a whole new part of the liberty movement that I hadn't really connected with before until The Motorhome Diaries rolled around the country, I was glad to hear a similar project was being done and I wanted to show my support somehow.

But I wasn't sure how I wanted to do that.

Also during the last year, I've been thoroughly enjoying another project, School Sucks, which I have mentioned at least once on this blog.

The School Sucks Project is loaded with interesting, thoughtful information about schools, learning and education. One thing I really like about it is that besides the podcasts themselves, host Brett Veinotte takes the time and trouble to list resources directly related to that particular show's topic and content (books, articles, other podcasts etc).

I like that because he's not only telling the truth about our education system, he's also helping people with their own journey into self-education and critical thinking.

As a result of listening to this project and watching it grow, I've been looking for an interesting way to help support this project too.

So, when I saw that Liberty On Tour was offering various types of sponsorships to fund their project, I thought this would be a good way to support both projects in one fell swoop.

One fell swoop is good for me. Too many swoops and I get dizzy.

So all I have to say now is go, my sons, and promote liberty throughout the land. :)

Don't Coerce Your Neighbor, Just Support Your Cause

HARBESON: You can put your money where your vote is

By DEBBIE HARBESON Local Columnist

> SOUTHERN INDIANA — This column is for all the yes men (and women) out there — those residing in the Clarksville Community School Corp. boundaries who voted yes on the recent referendum intended to increase the tax base for the school system.

You listened when officials said they didn’t have enough money and the problem could not be fixed by lowering expenses. You realized, as they do, that although many people continue to refer to government-funded education as free, it’s really not. You accepted that when a government-funded service needs more money, it must come from productive members of the community.

So, after the administrators came up with their plan, you sat down, looked over your budget, calculated the additional costs based on your property valuation, considered your goals and decided it was worth it. You went to the polls and voted yes.

But the referendum failed. Naturally, you were disappointed and perhaps even irritated at those who voted no. You felt like that was the end of it.

But it’s not. The referendum is only the end of it for those who did not want to be coerced into paying more. You, however, can still do what you wanted to do.

See, the vote had absolutely nothing to do with whether or not you pay an additional amount to the school system. In reality, your vote only allowed you to say that you condoned the coercion of your neighbor paying more as well, whether he wanted to or not.

That’s all your yes vote would really have accomplished because you can still do what you said you wanted to do and contribute more money to the cause. The failed referendum changes nothing for you as an individual. You are still free to pay more into the system. No one will stop you. As a yes man (or woman), you remain free to do what you decided you were willing to do.

And speaking of freedom, the referendum result also set free those who do not consent to an increase. Fortunately, they are now able to use their money that would have been coerced from them in any way they decide is worth it, based on their individual goals and values.

So go ahead, follow through on your decision. No one will stop you from doing what you think is right, so pay the amount equal to an additional 24 cents per $100 of assessed valuation on your property. You may even be willing to pay more than that and again, you are free to do so.

In addition, if you are part of the special interest group that receives the 65 and older property tax deduction, then consider adding that amount on top of your 24 cents per $100 assessed valuation to your funds as well. I’m sure everyone in the system would appreciate this additional voluntary gesture.

You will benefit by giving your money this way because you avoid much of the bureaucracy and additional costs that occur when your funds travel through the tax system. You’ll have more power to direct the money to areas you decide are most valuable. You are even free to pool your money with others and put it to work in ways you deem worthy.

Best of all, taking this individual action leaves everyone with a better feeling than dragging in others without their consent. They are left alone and you get to pay the additional amount as you said you would. Each individual is respected.

Remember, you don’t need to vote or get anyone’s permission when you want to support a cause you believe in.


Sellersburg resident Debbie Harbeson has always been a yes-woman. Especially when someone else is paying the bill.

What If Government Ended Tomorrow?

There is a podcast I listen to called School Sucks which I have mentioned before on my Homeschooling Is Freedom blog. It is hosted by Brett Veinotte and through this podcast series he is methodically and expertly making the case of how damaging government education is to a free society.

His target audience is meant to be teens and young adults, I suspect because he knows they can more easily go out and really make some changes, for themselves first and then in the world. However, these podcasts are great for anyone interested in the problems of education and I highly recommend them.

But today, I wanted to share an interesting exercise Brett did in one of his most recent podcasts titled, The Natural State?, the last in a series on American History.

In this podcast, he asks the question: what if government ended tomorrow? What possible chains of events could occur if suddenly we all woke up and there was no government? What would be the worst case scenario and how would you feel about the worst case scenario?

In the introduction to this particular podcast, he says this:

"Imagine if we all woke up tomorrow, and government was gone. All government, all over the world, all individuals calling themselves government all over the world had vanished.

Now at that point, imagine this: Murphy's Law. Anything that can go wrong, does go wrong and one of the worst possible chains of events, that I can imagine anyway, goes into motion. What would the eventual outcome look like? What would the world look like if the worst fears of a respectful and peaceful person all came true?

And, most importantly, how would most people, supporting the state today, for its apparent ability to protect and provide and maintain order, how would those people feel about perhaps the most tragic and chaotic outcome of this stateless world?

Well, that would seem like a pretty easy question for them to answer, but it's not. And I sincerely hope that realization helps ease some fears about the eventual demise of the state.

Now at this point, if you go to the podcast, at 1:01:55, you can listen to Brett lay out his idea of the worst possible scenario that could happen. (It runs about 16 minutes.) I think it makes a lot of sense. What do you think?

The Self-Education of Karl Hess

I listened to this podcast today about Karl Hess, a fascinating man with a fascinating life history. (You can get started learning about him at Wikipedia. )

In this podcast, at 2:20, the narrator talks about Hess' educational experiences under the influence of his mother, a dropout (note that this was not unusual at the time).

She did several things that I found interesting from the standpoint of helping a child move forward into developing a strong ability to self-educate. Supposedly she:

1. Began to refuse to answer his questions if she thought he could use resources to find out the answers on his own.

2. Showed him how to use the library, dictionary and other reference books, and also took him to government offices and showed him how to access public records. In other words, she guided him to resources.

3. Finally, and this was really cool, she wrote him notes so he could skip school anytime he wanted, as long as he went to the library or stayed home and read books which he then later discussed with her.

It's amazing to me that his mother had such a clear idea of self-education and when you look at Hess' life you can easily see that the man was a life-long learner, constantly taking in more information and then changing his life as he processed what it all meant to him.

That's educational freedom and one of the best gifts we can all give to our children.

(Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)