By Linda Dobson,
reprinted with permission
WHEN in the Course of human Events,
it becomes necessary for Families to dissolve the Educational
Bands which have connected them to a faltering Society, and to
assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal
Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle
them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that
they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.
WE hold these Truths to be self-evident,
that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of HappinessThat to secure
these Rights, Education is instituted among Men, deriving its
just Powers from the Consent of the Educated, that whenever any
Form of Education becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the
Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute
new Education, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and
organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most
likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed,
will dictate that a Public Education System long established
should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly
all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to
suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves
by Abolishing the Public Education System to which they are accustomed.
But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably
the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute
Government Control, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw
off such Public Education System, and to provide new Guards for
their future Security. Such has been the patient Sufferance of
these Families; and such is now the Necessity which constrains
them to alter their former Educational System. The History of
the Government-Controlled, Public Education System is a History
of repeated Injuries and
Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment
of an absolute Control over these Families. To prove this, let
Facts be submitted to a candid World.
THE GOVERNMENT has refused its Assent
to Freedom in Education, the most wholesome and necessary for
the public Good.
IT has forbidden its Children Freedom
of immediate and pressing Importance...
IT has refused Freedom for the Accommodation
of large Numbers of Families, unless those Families would register
with the State, a violation of freedom and privacy to them, and
formidable to Absolute Control only.
IT has called together the Nation's
Children at Places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the
warmth and nurturance of their Parents, for the sole Purpose
of fatiguing them into Compliance with its Measures.
IT has dissolved Alternatives repeatedly
with its unceasing bureaucratic requirements, for opposing with
manly Firmness its Invasions on the Rights of the People.
IT has refused for a long Time, after
such dissolutions, to cause other Alternatives to be carried
out; whereby the Educational Powers, incapable of Improvement,
have returned to the failing System at large for their exercise;
the Family remaining in the mean time exposed to all the Dangers
of Invasion from without, and Convulsions within.
IT has endeavored to prevent the True
Education of the Population of these States; for that Purpose
obstructing the Natural Process of Learning; refusing to pass
others to encourage their Individual Efforts...
IT has obstructed the Administration
of True Education, by refusing to recognize the Sovereignty of
Family.
IT has made Public School Employees
dependent on its Will alone, for the Tenure of their Offices,
and the Amount and Payment of their Salaries.
IT has erected a Multitude of new Laws,
and sent hither Swarms of Its Employees to harass our People,
and eat out their Substance.
IT has kept among us, often against
the People's Will, Standing Armies of Social Workers.
IT has affected to render the Education
Establishment independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
IT has...subject us to a Jurisdiction
foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws;
giving its Assent to...Acts of...Legislation:
FOR quartering large Bodies of Compelling
Troops among us:
FOR protecting them, by a mock Trial,
from Punishment for any usurpation of Family Sovereignty which
they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
FOR cutting off our Connection with
True Education:
FOR imposing Taxes on us used to Oppress
us:
FOR depriving us, in many Cases, of
the Benefits of Family Time;
FOR transporting our Children for large
blocks of their time;
FOR taking away our Family Autonomy,
abolishing our most valuable Family Connections, and altering
fundamentally the Forms of our Families:
FOR suspending our Parental Authority,
and declaring itself invested with Power to control for us in
all cases whatsoever.
IT has abdicated Control here, by failing
us its Protection and waging Educational War against us.
IT has plundered our Pocketbooks, ravaged
our Family Lives, burnt our Trust, and destroyed the Lives of
our People.
IT is, at this time, forging new Laws
to compleat the Works of Despair, Desolation, and Tyranny, already
begun with circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy, scarcely paralleled
in the most barbarous Ages, and totally unworthy the Government
School System of a civilized Nation.
IT has constrained our fellow Citizens
taken Captive in our Nation's Classrooms, to become the Competitors
of their Friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their
Hands.
IT has excited domestic Insurrections
amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the Inhabitants of
our Nation, the merciless Conditioning, whose known Rule of Warfare,
is an undistinguished Destruction, of all Ages, Sexes and Conditions.
IN every stage of these Oppressions
we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble Terms: Our
repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated Injury.
A Public Education System, whose Character is thus marked by
every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Educational
Controller of a free People.
NOR have we been wanting in Attentions
to our Legislators. We have warned them from time to time of
Attempts by their very Government to extend an unwarrantable
Educational Jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the
Circumstances that brought us to this point. We have appealed
to their native Justice and Magnanimity, and we have conjured
them by the Ties of our common Kindred to disavow these Usurpations,
which, would inevitably interrupt our Connections and Correspondence.
They too have been deaf to the Voice of Justice and of Consanguinity.
We must, therefore, acquiesce in the Necessity, which denounces
our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of Mankind,
Enemies in War, in Peace, Friends.
WE, therefore, the Families of the
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in GENERAL AGREEMENT, Assembled, appealing
to the Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of our Intentions,
do, in the Name, and by Authority of Sound, Sane Parental Consciousness,
solemnly Publish and Declare, That these United People are, and
of Right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT FAMILIES, they have
full Power to levy Choice in Family Education, consider the Family's
Values and Time Needs to choose the extent of participation in
and support of the Public Education System, contract Alliances,
establish Family Priorities and Values, and to do all other Acts
and Things which INDEPENDENT FAMILIES may of right do. And for
the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the
Protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other
our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.