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Perhaps the bond money and the school system yoga classes will conjure the ever elusive student success.Whatever happens, the public should beware of state and county claims.Last week the Charleston Gazette exposed the state for fudging the drop-out statistics and West Virginia recently received a D- on a national study of how states set the academic levels for NCLB standards of student proficiency.

Besides teacher benefits, the levy will be used to bring more technology into schools.Unfortunately, the touted "smart board" may become an electronic chalk board in much the same way computers were used as hi-tech flash cards.

To get tax-payers to hand over more of their hard-earned money the levy selling feature was that happy teachers and high technology will help kids become worldwide competitive scholars. In reality, upgrading technology in public schools is like using a chair to replace the wooden stool to hand milk cows.

Let's turn the "Way Back" machine to yesteryear and hear part of Robert Byrd's speech criticizing fuzzy math."I have been continually puzzled by our Nation's failure to produce better students despite public concern and despite the billions of Federal dollars which are appropriated annually for various programs intended to aid and improve education."

Now, return to the present and hear Governor Bob Wise (president of the Alliance for Excellent Education) declare a crisis in US high schools due to the high drop-out rate.Wise proclaims there are moral and economic imperatives for the urgent need to fix the public school problem.

Politicians have always wanted to throw tax-payer money (in the form of new stalls, harnesses, and buckboards) into the burning barn of public (more accurately "government") schooling.This only provides more fuel and prolongs the inevitable collapse of the burning edifice of government education.

State school superintendent Stephen Paine, realizing that we live in an Internet world, calls for laptops for every student.Interestingly, he points out that he observed a "hunger for learning" in Chinese children who don't have individual laptops.Paine is joined by the president of Verizon in admitting that United States students are falling further and further behind internationally.Their solution is the Partnership for 21^st Century Learning which is simply more chairs piled in a burning barn.

Let's evacuate the barn.

The Federal Government has no Constitutional authority to educate children.Both political parties, using different buzz words, have wasted billions of dollars to get us into our current dangerous situation.

The future is here, outside of the barn, and it basically is what our country used when it was founded—with the addition of modern technology.In effect, to solve America's education emergency, we must go back to the future.

The solution will open new, and wonderful, horizons for teachers.In fact, teachers may lead the way because good teachers will have their chains removed.

There will be a huge savings to taxpayers.Upkeep of expensive buildings, which serve as a type of day-care prison, will no longer be needed.Millions of trees will be saved by nearly eliminating the need for propaganda riddled textbooks.The bus fuel budget breaker will be eliminated without resorting to rickshaws.

Colleges and universities, nation-wide, have already entered the fresh air.

As two liberal professors (Jon Wiles and John Lundt) have proclaimed in their prophetic book (Leaving School:Finding Education): TO FIND EDUCATION WE MUST LEAVE SCHOOL!(emphasis mine)

Away from the smoke-filled barn is fresh air of education freedom using Internet Learning (also called Distance or Virtual Learning).

A Harvard professor* predicts that by 2019, 50% of all high school classes will be taught via the Internet.  I think he is under-stating what will occur.

According to the North American Council for Online Learning over 1 million students are enrolled in Internet classes.

WVU has a growing Internet campus with over 4000 students enrolled this spring offering three undergraduate and 12 graduate degrees, completely online, with more planned.

MU offers an extensive Internet course selection and also recommends The Southern Regional Electronic Campus which offers thousands of online courses.A Marshall student can obtain an undergraduate degree in three fields (and one graduate degree) entirely without setting foot on campus.

If one wishes to learn just for learning's sake, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has over 1800 MIT courses on-line in its OpenCourseWare which represent nearly every course taught at MIT materials that reflects almost all the undergraduate and graduate subjects taught at MIT.MIT is part of a Consortium of over 200 higher education institutions from around the world that provide free access to courses.

Almost every state has seen pre-college Internet Learning enrollments surge in recent years.West Virginia set up a VirtualSchool in 2000 beginning with three rural middle-schoolers which increased to several hundred students enrolled by 2001.Many West Virginia students use the FloridaVirtualSchool which advertises has over 10,000 students who learn at "Any Place, Any Pace".

In Alaska it is impossible, due to the vast remoteness, to think about education in terms of using buses to bring students to buildings.Nearly 8% (more than 10,000) students are educated in their own Alaskan homes.

While using Internet Learning students do not have to worry about missing a part of a lecture if their mind wanders or they get sleepy.The fear of being laughed at for asking a "dumb" question or answering wrongly is eliminated.

If a market driven system is established, parents could spend their money where the best choices are found.A child based funding system would give parents their God ordained control of their children's education.

This is truly an American value:education on demand. Rich resources are available with a simple "click".America has everything needed to provide a top-notch education in private homes.Students can learn at their own pace and style, and they can network with students all over the world.Classes would be eliminated that have some students bored and other students lost while the average students are taught.Wiles and Lundt have a brilliant plan on how to deal with those who just do not want to learn and disrupt the learning of others.

There is a vast difference between schooling and learning. New technology will soon eliminate schools as our source of learning because knowledge is increasing so fast that schools cannot keep pace.Why should we waste tax-payer money to prop up a system designed for the 19^th century?

Wiles and Lundt bluntly state, "Parents should be both frightened and outraged" at the incompetence of public schools.They also point out that schools are nearly unbearably expensive and so "issue-oriented that they are beginning to pull down other institutions".Americans should not be forced to pay for a failed monopoly.

It costs over $100,000 to educate one student K through 12.This is going to soon bust state budgets.We end up spending $50-75 thousand on drop-outs which is a terrible investment.Enrollment and achievement go down while costs go up.Property taxes may soon threaten home ownership.

Home and Christian school leaders have already pioneered a way for transition to complete educational freedom for much less cost than a traditional school.The UniversityModelSchool was developed in the early 1990's by combining Christian schooling and homeschooling with a stress on academic standards and a strong work ethic.

In a UMS young children receive art and music classes and are home-schooled for most other subjects.Middle schoolers pick up more classes which are offered on a MWF and TuTh basis, with flexible scheduling loads, like college courses.High school (middle school too) students can use advanced placement courses offered from groups like the CalvertSchool or the University of Nebraska Independent Study High School. No child is locked into a subject that has been mastered or forced to wait on a course until reaching a certain grade or age.Combine all of these choices with the option of Classical Learning (see http://www.insectman.us/testimony/exodus-mandate.htm and click on Exodus Mandate) and Internet Learning and the opportunities for children are exciting and unlimited.  (Our new motto will be:  NCLI--No child Locked In.)

Wiles and Lundt correctly proclaim that schools cannot be fixed because schools are obsolete relics that are "responsible for increasing amounts of cultural decay and social dysfunction."

A 1983 federal report concluded that "if an enemy of the United States wanted to destroy our nation, they would use the public schools."

Crawling out of a smoke filled barn is frightening and abrasive, but the only way to survive.If we had waited on a perfect situation we would not have sent men to the moon.Americans can continue to prop up the government school burning barn, like we have the Post Office, while the homeschool movement acts as the educational UPS; or Americans can remove the tax support of a failed system and launch America back to the future of learning.

*May 7, 2008 Education Week article "Online Education Cast as 'Disruptive Innovation'" reviews the book Disrupting Class:How disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns by Clayton M. Christensen

Priest, of Poca, WV, is state coordinator of Exodus Mandate-West Virginia, a group that promotes Christian education and home schooling.

Published July 6, 2008