For a second year in a row, Illinois State Senator Kimberly Lightford (D-Chicago) has introduced a bill, SB 1307, to lower the mandatory age for school attendance in Illinois from 7 to 5 years-of-age. This year, Senator Lightford amended her bill to lower the mandatory age for school attendance from 7 to 6 instead to gain more support. This bill passed the Illinois Senate last week and is now being considered in the Illinois House, where the chief sponsor of the bill is State Representative La Shawn Ford (D-Chicago).
“The last thing we need in Illinois is more government control and influence in our lives and this is especially true for our young and impressionable children,” said David E. Smith, IFI Executive Director, in response to this legislation. “We all need to wake up and realize how much indoctrination is going on in our public schools, including the promotion of man-made global warming, Darwinism, LGBT affirmation, population control, feminism, reproductive ‘choice’ and other social and political issues.”
“Moreover, there is absolutely no reason for the government to usurp the God-given authority of parents to direct the upbringing of their children.”
Smith isn’t impressed with the idea that the government is going to fix what’s wrong with education by forcing kids to start school earlier. Fixing schools isn’t about more seat time for kids. Smith says education will be fixed when we spend more time on the truth.
Veteran and prize winning public school educator John Taylor Gatto asks, “Do we really need school? I don’t mean education, just forced schooling: six classes a day, five days a week, nine months a year, for twelve years. Is this deadly routine necessary?” Gatto goes on to list Americans who were spared the public school routine and nevertheless managed to achieve some modest success in life: George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. He concludes they were, “Unschooled, perhaps, but not uneducated.”
The truth may be that public schools aren’t about education at all.
Dr. Samuel Blumenfeld an author of eight critical books on education, wrote in 1991, “The purpose of compulsory attendance is not to provide an education for all, but merely to fill classrooms with children for the convenience of the education establishment whose financial benefits depend on deluding the public into believing that education is taking place.”
Parental concern with schools is fueling the homeschool movement. Illinois’ own homeschooling advocates David & Kim d’Escoto point out in their book Big Reasons to Homeschool, “Prior to compulsory education, findings show that the literacy rate in America was as high as 90 to 98 percent, a remarkable level that has never been attained since the establishment of our current state-controlled education system. A recent survey revealed the drastic decline in U.S. literacy: 21 to 23 percent, or some 40 to 44 million of the 191 million adults in the United States, demonstrated incompetence in the lowest level of reading, writing, and mathematical skill.”
The decision of when to start children in public schools, which increasingly serve the political ends of liberals, rests with parents, not school administrators or lawmakers.
IFI is working with the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) and Illinois Christian Home Educators (ICHE) in defense of parental rights and in opposition to this proposal.
Take ACTION: Click HERE to email or fax your state representative to ask him/her to vote against SB 1307 and the expanding role of government in the lives of Illinois families. You can also call your state senator through the Capitol switchboard at (217) 782-2000.
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