JOHN HOLT: In a great many other ways, [the student] learns that he is worthless, untrustworthy, fit only to take other people's orders, a blank sheet for other people to write on.

School is prison with brighter colors? pic.twitter.com/pMAEeOCfHI

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) May 20, 2026

Kids used to tell me how schools were like prisons, and I'd agree just to be in empathy with them but wasn't truly convinced since places and time spent is what you make it, what you do there to get yourself out or to move to the next level.  But this may be the most visually convincing argument that "schools are like prisons" and how irrefutably true the point is in spite of the most well-meaning, suicidally empathetic adults you have occupying the classroom.  Kids will leave school with much of the campus mapped in their heads, a memory of their favorite or most-liked teacher along with some of the most forgettable people in their lives.  And then this threat of prison, of returning to it, of making it some defaulted comfort from childhood remains as a sword of Damocles over one's head.  And I don't care if the school is some fancy Catholic school like Mater Dei or fancy prep school like Evans.  Yes, kids will return to somewhere.  Make that somewhere home, their mother's abode.  Heartbreaking.  And then think of the ghouls that occupy the classrooms or administrative offices or off-campus offices for when they're called upon to do some hideous, clandestine action against a teacher to isolate him, destroy his character, identity, and reputation.

Even if schools are not actual prisons or physical copies for the real thing, it's a psychological prison, which is even worse.  From John Holt, 

In a great many other ways, he learns that he is worthless, untrustworthy, fit only to take other people's orders, a blank sheet for other people to write on. Oh, we make a lot of nice noises in school about respect for the child and individual differences, and the like. But our acts, as opposed to our talk, says to the child, "Your experience, your concerns, your curiosities, your needs, what you know, what you want, what you wonder about, what you hope for, what you fear, what you like and dislike, what you are good at or not so good at - all this is of not the slightest importance, it counts for nothing. What counts here, and the only thing that counts, is what we know, what we think is important, what we want you to do, think and be." The child soon learns not to ask questions - the teacher isn't there to satisfy his curiosity. Having learned to hide his curiosity, he later learns to be ashamed of it. Given no chance to find out who he is - and to develop that person, whoever it is - he soon comes to accept the adults' evaluation of him. 

More from John Holt.

BUTLEROFTHANOS: SCOTUS ruled in 1982 that cities and states couldn't deny access to public schools based on immigration status, forcing schools into having to accept illegal aliens ever since.

 

SCOTUS ruled in 1982 that cities and states couldn't deny access to public schools based on immigration status, forcing schools into having to accept illegal aliens ever since.

— ButlerofThanos (@ButlerofThanos) January 27, 2025

Citizens are scratching their heads trying to find out what so many undocumented Mexicans have been living in the United States for two to three decades unchecked and unenforced.  One, there is nothing to enforce because the Supreme Court provides for or guarantees illegal aliens to an education.  

Looks like Plyler, a Texas resident, brought a lawsuit against Texas in Plyler v. Doe.

Held: A Texas statute which withholds from local school districts any state funds for the education of children who were not "legally admitted" into the United States, and which authorizes local school districts to deny enrollment to such children, violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. 

Check out the language of the law.  "Whatever his status under the immigration laws, an alien is a "person" in any ordinary sense of that term."  

(a) The illegal aliens who are plaintiffs in these cases challenging the statute may claim the benefit of the Equal Protection Clause, which provides that no State shall "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Whatever his status under the immigration laws, an alien is a "person" in any ordinary sense of that term. This Court's prior cases recognizing that illegal aliens are "persons" protected by the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, which Clauses do not include the phrase "within its jurisdiction," cannot be distinguished on the asserted ground that persons who have entered the country illegally are not "within the jurisdiction" of a State even if they are present within its boundaries and subject to its laws. Nor do the logic and history of the Fourteenth Amendment support such a construction. Instead, use of the phrase "within its jurisdiction" confirms the understanding that the Fourteenth Amendment's protection extends to anyone, citizen or stranger, who is subject to the laws of a State, and reaches into every corner of a State's territory. Pp. 457 U. S. 210-216.  

The 1982 U.S. Surpreme Court case Plyler v. Doe established that denying children access to free public K-12 education violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution.

PETER ST ONGE: How did American politics get so dumb? Easy: Government Schools.

Left-wing American intellectuals were fascinated by Prussia's indoctrination and imported it to the United States.  They were motivated not by peasant revolts but by the frustratingly small government ethos of American Catholics.  --Peter St Onge

How did American politics get so dumb?

Easy: Government Schools.

We can track one-for-one the decline of American political discourse and the rise of public education.

Take people who can't name a state or don't know what the Supreme Court is, wash them with decades of… pic.twitter.com/7tsfHwz5VT

— Peter St Onge, Ph.D. (@profstonge) August 22, 2024

It's a modern fetish that we are brilliant but our ancestors were idiots.  After all, they didn't have iPhones, the internet, or Kim Kardashian.  There's also an academic consensus, for what it's worth, called the Flynn Effect, the idea is that people do better on puzzles, so we must be smarter.  Of course, one wonders if puzzles translate into say understanding monetary policy or how welfare destroys families.  Thankfully, we have a real-world test, an actual political campaign.  Back when I was a professor, I ran every inaugural address through a Flesch Kincaid text analysis to measure the grade level.  The logic being that top speech writers know how to talk at the voter's level.  Doing that, it turns out that we are getting dumb breathtakingly fast.  In 1900, inaugurals were written at between 13th and 14th grades, in other words, modern college level.  Today, they are 8th grade for Obama, 9th grade for Trump, and 7th grade for Biden.  It gets worse further back we go.  Andrew Jackson's 1828 inaugural was written at 22nd-grade level, meaning strictly speaking two PhDs were the median voter in 1828.  Keep in mind, that Jackson was a populist man of the people.  Washington's inaugural is closer to 26th grade, so you'd need that third PhD.  Also, keep in mind, that almost nobody in 1828 or 1789 had a formal education.  

Jackson, for example, kicks off [his inaugural address] with "Undertaking the arduous duties that I've been appointed, . . ."

Washington starts with "Among the vicissitudes incident to life, . . . ." 

For Biden, it's "This is America's day."

So how did we get so dumb?  Easy: Public Schools.  The modern government school came from 1800s Prussia who had enough of worker riots in peasant revolts and resolved to indoctrinate kids into pro-regime obedience.  It worked like a charm, turning the once unruly Germans into a government-directed Army that went on to do terrible things.  Left-wing American intellectuals were fascinated by Prussia's indoctrination and imported it to the United States.  They were motivated not by peasant revolts but by the frustratingly small government ethos of American Catholics.  Progressives figure they couldn't progress figured they couldn't frog march American Catholics into government Utopia, but by gum they have their children.  These activists spread government schools to every state and got a major boost post-war when competence tests were declared discriminatory forcing companies to instead rely on formal education to discover Talent this launched the University from a fringe toy of the 1% into a $300,000 tax on anybody hoping for a white collar job.  Meanwhile, like all government programs, opportunists, i.e., teachers' unions, took over spending at this point $878 billion per year, dutifully peddling politics but neglecting the actual purpose of education, leaving American kids illiterate and innumerate.  In a video last year, I mentioned how fully 23 Baltimore schools have zero students proficient in math.  And in Detroit, 96% of students can't do math; 95% cannot even read, but by gum, they know their Demi genders.  Take people who can't name a state or don't know what a Supreme Court is, wash them with decades of left-wing propaganda, stick them in a voter booth, and here we are.

If we are to save our democracy we have to save our voters by replacing government schools with schools that actually teach instead of indoctrinate that could mean school choice,, it could mean vouchers it could be homeschooling co-ops, but until we fix it, things will keep getting worse.

Here's Rothbard's "Education: Free and Compulsory," 1979.

Government Schools Are Bad for Your Kids: What You Need to Know https://t.co/SNpIvg5eST via @amazon

— St. Michael, the Archangel (@aveng_angel) August 22, 2024