John Taylor Gatto’s book The Underground History of American Education is available for reading in its entirety online! I’ve been wanting to read this book ever since I saw it recommended by Mary Pride several years ago. (Thanks to Joanne Jacobs for the link.) From the Prologue which I just read:

The cost in New York State for building a well-schooled child in the year 2000 is $200,000 per body when lost interest is calculated. That capital sum invested in the child?s name over the past twelve years would have delivered a million dollars to each kid as a nest egg to compensate for having no school. The original $200,000 is more than the average home in New York costs. You wouldn?t build a home without some idea what it would look like when finished, but you are compelled to let a corps of perfect strangers tinker with your child?s mind and personality without the foggiest idea what they want to do with it.

I wish I coud have one fourth of the amount that the state would spend to educate each of my children in public school. I could invest it and give each child a start in his chosen career that would be the envy of anyone else watching.