I Oppose Government Education By Eric Herrera

Re-Blogged with permission by the Author.

For more check out http://www.ericherrera.com/ 

I am an opponent of Common Core(2009+) [1], Race to the Top(2009) [2], No Child Left Behind(2001) [3], and all prior federal action in education [4], because Congress has no Constitutional authority to intervene in education, government action always disrupts the voluntary interactions of individuals (the free market) [5], and learning requires inspiration not standards. The teacher motivates and inspires. The student is ultimately responsible for learning.

I believe that individuals taking responsibility for their own learning is far superior to imposed education.

I believe compulsory education is immoral.

I believe that good standards do not have to be forced on people(government action is always coercive). Being in the software field, computing is full of standards that were voluntarily adopted. HTTP for example was not imposed on everyone, yet it is now a nearly ubiquitous standard. I do not believe it requires coercive action to make thousands of professors and teachers agree that the pythagorean theorem is a relation in Euclidean geometry among the three sides of a right triangle.


I included a list of video resources that have had an impact on the way I think about government education.

Ken Robinson: How schools kill creativity
http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity

Ken Robinson: Changing education paradigms
http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_changing_education_paradigms

Dr. Duke Pesta: Common Core
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si-kx5-MKSE

Salman Khan: Let’s use video to reinvent education
http://www.ted.com/talks/salman_khan_let_s_use_video_to_reinvent_education

Joshua Katz: Toxic culture of education
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnC6IABJXOI

Dan Meyer: Math class needs a makeover
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_meyer_math_curriculum_makeover

Ramsey Musallam: 3 rules to spark learning
http://www.ted.com/talks/ramsey_musallam_3_rules_to_spark_learning

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Core_State_Standards_Initiative

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_to_the_Top

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Child_Left_Behind_Act

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Education

[5] http://mises.org/daily/1471/The-Myth-of-Efficient-Government