Customer Reviews

Government Schools Are Bad for Your Kids: What You Need to Know

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"Government Schools are Bad for Your Kids" is an excellent first book to present to those who have woken up to the fact that something is wrong with America, but can't put their finger on it. It is a great book to hand to parents to encourage them to think about the education they 'purchase' for their children.

The book is relatively short, quick to read and to the point. It reads like a consumer guide for parents deciding on where to send their kids to be instructed. One choice of which (which this book is focused on) is government schools, which every parent should evaluate as a price vs. benefit purchase, as any other item in life: housing, food, clothing, etc.

Although government schooling is 'free', or rather everyone is forced to pay for it anyway, whether he likes it or not, the benefits at this price are not desirable as Ostrowski points out. He encourages parents to 'shop around' and compare what other options are, despite having to pay for it on top of the mandatory government school tax, to see what is most beneficial to their families. He makes the case that in the long run, other than government schooling is cheaper with better results.

Although I found the book did not have much new to say to convince me, it will not be shocking to those who still support or are concerned with government schools. If fact, that seems to be the point: to not overly alarm the reader. Also, the book doesn't really give a whole lot of esoteric knowledge. Most of what Ostrowski says everyone knows about anyway, but nobody acknowledges it, especially not the bureaucrats. His service is he points out the obvious facts and backs them up with lesser known facts, quotations and data.


Who should get this book: people who recently got involved with the Tea Party Movement, 9/12ers, Ron Paul supporters, libertarians who have friends of child bearing age to hand a short book to them, etc. This is especially a must for homeschoolers who still have un-supporting or critical family members or friends, to help explain their decisions.

If you are for encouraging the educational free market, and want to help communicate that to your family, friends and acquaintances, this book is a good tool for you.

If you're wondering how health care will look under increased government control, look no further than our schools (and this book).

The result of public control is a mediocre product that people tolerate because it's "free", and because most can't afford the better option (since so much of their money-- taxes--- is already going to pay for the "free" option).

Those who can afford it often escape the inferior product by paying additionally for a better one. A private one. So they pay twice; mandated taxes for the lesser, then additional money for the one the really want.

This book is a must read for all parents with school age children. Children deserve the best education possible. Parents owe it to themselves, and their children, to not take education for granted and to evaluate all of the options available. The advice in this book can literally change lives. It is the perfect Christmas gift for parents.

To include schooling, our modernist materialist dependent society, the decay of the family, our out of control government - it's all here. The solution is simple: Take back your kids, take back your family, take back your country. I only would have hoped for a more well versed and approached addressing of home education. The author would do well to study John Holt and John Taylor Gatto; this would be the only improvement he could make to his tidy, sharp volume.

Though I have many libertarian sympathies, this is far from a legitimate and unbiased evaluation of the public schools (or private ones for that matter). The author has a clear political agenda that taints the entire "work", and renders it a propaganda piece and not a white paper.

If you want to read a one-sided self-indulgent monologue, save your money and read any one of a thousand single page format blogs that ignore the inconvenient contrary arguments.