Your review seems well reasoned. However, how can you claim to like Gatto's work and then be a PhD student in education? I've noticed that you've reviewed Gatto's 'Weapon's of Mass Instruction:A Schoolteacher's Journey Through The Dark World Of Compulsory Schooling' and disagreed with it because it wasn't "Rothbardian" enough. You've never explained what a "Rothbardian" education would look like. From what I've read of economist Murray Rothbard's critiques of education, Rothbard supports many of the things that Gatto rightfully criticizes like grading,testing, and tracking. Gatto has also attacked John Gardner and Chris Whittle among others for their attempts to "reform" our school system and yet you like those individuals a lot. It seems to me that the real reason why you don't like the book is because Gatto is TOO radical for you.

AK,

Interesting note. Yes, I agree with much criticism of public education as government education. That doesn't mean that I am against education in total and cannot study education as a PhD student. Anarchists, after all, could take a degree in political science without their being any necessary contradiction.

Rothbard was not at all against formal schooling, and that is where Rothbard and Gatto differ. In "Education: Free and Compulsory," Rothbard is very fine with the idea that parents will often send their children to formal school via private school. When I wrote the review to which you refer, I was thinking about Gatto's antipathy toward formal schooling in all its forms. That, I am very uncomfortable with.

EDIT: After responding to your post, I went back and looked at my review of WoMI. I do not mention Rothbard in it, as you say I do. I mention Rothbard on the second page of discussion that my review invoked and explain EXACTLY what I mean by saying that I am a libertarian more sympathetic to Rothbard than Gatto. So, while I stand by the comment in the paragraph above this one, I am sure your charges about mentioning Rothbard in my review and not explaining what I meant in saying that is false on two counts.

"It seems to me that the real reason why you don't like the book is because Gatto is TOO radical for you."

In part, I suppose he is. While I sympathize with many of the points made by unschoolers like John Holt and Gatto, I am not convinced that most children's future interests are best served by not receiving any formal education at all. I have some sympathy, in other words, for the 'essentialist' position of progressive education's critics like Bagley and Kandel that part of a good education often involves teaching students something they may not at the time be interested in but likely will need for the future. (Educated guesses can be made on this subject and adults are often smarter than children in judging long-term interests not immediately seen by kids).

If you think Rothbard was sympathetic toward anything like an unschooling position, read his essay "Kid Lib." As contradictory as the article is, he does tell us that parents are charged with looking out for the child's best interest (that the child may not see yet) and, even though children are free to disassociate from their parents if they feel their interests aren't being served, until that point, parents need not and should not simply let the child be the sole determiner of what they do.

Kevin Currie-Knight,

Murray Rothbard in his "Education:Free and Compulsory" conflates the interests of Prussian style schooling with the progressive movement in education, as if the two were the same. John Dewey,in fact, was more in the Prussian camp than many of his critics have been willing to admit, which Gatto points out. The progressive movement was responsible for the tracking and 'gifted and talented' programs that many conservative commentators support. The Prussian movement wanted to everyone to have the same knowledge, but only what the bureaucrats said they should learn. Rothbard makes absurd claims such as that schools never wanted to instill knowledge and grade students(which of course he doesn't provide any evidence for) and quotes discredited academic psychologists like Richard Herrnstein to claim that intelligence is genetic. I found Rothbard's reasoning for formal schooling to be weak and more based on his libertarian, capitalistic economic beliefs than logic or evidence.

"I have some sympathy, in other words, for the 'essentialist' position of progressive education's critics like Bagley and Kandel that part of a good education often involves teaching students something they may not at the time be interested in but likely will need for the future."

This is exactly what Gatto and the homeschooling movement advocate. The reason why most kids are turned off to learning in fomal institutional settings isn't because they're stupid (as Charles Murray claims in his book 'Real Education') but because they're bored at having to follow and accept the style of the teacher and be around other kids who present a distracting and irritating enviroment in which it is impossible to learn the material. The mistake that I think you and other libertarian thinkers make is equating formal instruction with an institutional setting. The way to get more parents to homeschool their kids and give them the power to give their own kids knowledge they'll need for success is to promote tax credits to families who want to go that route. While Gatto would support that certainly, the only real disagreement I have with him is on his support of vouchers, which he made in the book and elsewhere.That support seems inconsistent with someone who has repudiated institutional schooling, which I do agree with. Many parents, if provided with financial incentives and familial support, would I believe be willing to homeschool their kids. If you think that formal instruction can't happen in the home where it naturally should happen, read David Guterson's 'Family Matters: Why Homschooling Makes Sense'. If more kids were homeschooled, more kids would be intelligent and be able to get into the Ivy League because of its low cost and effectiveness.

Ak,

"Murray Rothbard in his "Education:Free and Compulsory" conflates the interests of Prussian style schooling with the progressive movement in education, as if the two were the same."

First, I never got the impression from my several readings of Rothbard's essay that he ever meant to imply that Prussian-style education and progressive education were the same thing.

He does, of course, point out that they rely on the same influences and that there are similarities. They both rely, for instance, on the theories of Pestalozzi and Froebel, advocate for whole-language education, seek to "educate the whole child," and have as a primary goal the top-down organization of education. Among education circles, actually, Horace Mann (who advocated for a Prussian style education system) is rightly seen as being something of a precursor to progressive education, because he did advocate for many of the things that would eventually become part of that movement (even though what he was advocating for was what he learned in Prussia). Even Gatto, in his book, recognized the influence of the Prussian schools on progressive education.

So, while they certainly are not "the same thing" (can you provide a quote where Rothbard says or implies that they are?), they were certainly contiguous.

You are absolutely correct, by the way, about Dewey. He, along with others like Jane Addams, supported tracking by adjusting one's education to their felt abilities. Ironically, though, it was the 'traditionalists" in education like William Bagley and Isaac Kandel who dissented from tracking. How opposite we've become!!

"Rothbard makes absurd claims such as that schools never wanted to instill knowledge and grade students(which of course he doesn't provide any evidence for)"

Rothbard suggested that schools never wanted to instill knowledge? I remember him making a case - ample quotes provided - that from the first, champions of public schooling sought to indoctrinate (either civil or religious values) onto the population. But I don't recall him suggesting that schools never sought to instill knowledge. Can you provide a quote for that?

And if we are talking about Rothbard's lack of evidence, he certainly does provide citations for his quotes, which is something Gatto appallingly does not do! If not providing citations for direct quotes is your idea of providing evidence, then we have different standards.

"[Rothbard] quotes discredited academic psychologists like Richard Herrnstein to claim that intelligence is genetic."

That is a subject that isn't quite settled. Some evidence points toward a fixed view and others toward a more open view. I do not profess an opinion and am also a bit troubled at Rothbard's quickness to pronounce biological fixity as a settled issue. I am also bothered (as I'm sure you are) that folks on both sides of the discussion seem very eager to let their politics do their deciding for them, rather than to actually consider the scientific merit.

"I found Rothbard's reasoning for formal schooling to be weak and more based on his libertarian, capitalistic economic beliefs than logic or evidence. "

Yes, Rothbard is an economist by trade, and a decent one at that. I think the argument for a free market in education is quite strong, but will also say that I don't think Rothbard makes it in the essay we are talking about. For a good book on that, you might read Myron Lieberman, John Chubb, or Andrew Coulson.

"The reason why most kids are turned off to learning in fomal institutional settings isn't because they're stupid (as Charles Murray claims in his book 'Real Education')"

That is overstating Murray's case pretty unfairly. Murray is simply saying - what should be controversial - that whatever the education looks like, 49% will be above average and 49% will be below avarage (with the middle 1% being average) in performance. He is not suggesting that kids who don't excel academically are stupid, but rather making the case that academic education may not be for everyone.

Notice, I did not say whether I agreed or not with that assessment. That would sidetrack the discussion.

"The mistake that I think you and other libertarian thinkers make is equating formal instruction with an institutional setting. The way to get more parents to homeschool their kids and give them the power to give their own kids knowledge they'll need for success is to promote tax credits to families who want to go that route."

I like the point in your first sentence. You are right that there is a difference between formal ed and institutional ed. It is not that we equate formal with institutional schooling, but recognize that especially in a day and age where both parents work (and usually want to work), institutional schooling is generally the most attractive and feasible option. Even in the early republic, a good number of parents did not educate their own kids, but sent them to Parish schools, dame schools, or apprenticed them via an exchange that involved paying the apprentice money to be an apprentice.

You say the reason more parents don't home school is because they don't receive tax credits. You may have more faith than I that parents would be eager to quit their jobs and learn enough material to be a teacher to their child all because of a tax credit, but it is a faith I don't share. We would only know, of course, if we try it, but my guess is that more parents would use a tax credit to send their child to a private school than to homeschool, just as most parents are more likely to sign their child up for an already-existing karate school than to teach them themselves.

But that may just be my belief in capitalism coming through. (By the way, if I am not mistaken, Gatto served as a libertarian party educational advisor and, if you are unaware, the libertarian party has always professed a belief in capitalism.) http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/aboutus/john.htm, pgph 4

"While Gatto would support that certainly, the only real disagreement I have with him is on his support of vouchers, which he made in the book and elsewhere.That support seems inconsistent with someone who has repudiated institutional schooling, which I do agree with."

I agree. And that is one reason I think Gatto is sometimes hard to get behind. His position is hard to pin down because he advocates "open source education" but also sometimes supports vouchers. (I am sure I have read interviews with him, though, where he opposes vouchers. I know that like John Holt, Gatto has written that reforming schooling is impossible because of formal schooling's institutional nature. )

"If you think that formal instruction can't happen in the home where it naturally should happen, read David Guterson's 'Family Matters: Why Homschooling Makes Sense'. If more kids were homeschooled, more kids would be intelligent and be able to get into the Ivy League because of its low cost and effectiveness."

What happens to the family whose parents are illiterate? What happens with the family in whom both parents desire to work? What happens to the parent who has an autistic child is is unequipped to know how to educate her?

I am only throwing out these because, while I sympathize with your points (and Gatto's), I am not at all convinced that education isn't like just about any other service, where people will naturally tend to defer to others who make that profession their jobs rather than doing it themselves. When our car is broken, we generally go to a mechanic, whose job it is to know how to fix cars, rather than trying the fix ourselves. When we need new plumbing or need existing plumbing fixed, we generally tend to hire those who may know and can do more than we.

Why is education different? As mentioned, even in the early American republic, it was quite common to farm out the educaiton of one's young to a dame, tutor, pastor, etc. And those who were homescshooled were much more often than not school very minimally and learned the trade of their father almost to exclusivity. I have no DOUBT that many kids can flourish educated in the home and that many parents are equipped to do the job. I just distrust the idea that institutional schooling is some unqualified evil.

Kevin Currie-Knight,

"That is overstating Murray's case pretty unfairly. Murray is simply saying-what should be controversial-that whatever the education looks like, 49% will be above average and 49% will be below average(with the middle 1% being average) in performance. He is not suggesting that kids who don't excel academically are stupid, but rather making the case that academic education may not be for everyone."

Murray relies on norm-referenced standardized achievement tests like the ITBS and MAT where by definition half of the kids will score above the "norm" and half will fall below it, regardless of what any of the kids actually knows. This is because the test makers field test certain questions on a sample of kids (the "norm") and if too many of the kids get the question right, it's tossed out and replaced by a question that only half the kids will get right in order to make it easier to sort and select the kids. Murray never defines what an "average" child is in his book and while he does mention homeschooling as an option for many parents fed up with the public school system, he deliberately avoids mentioning the fact that homeschooled kids, regardless of socio-economic background, race, gender, etc score higher on the college entrance exams than either public or private institutionally schooled children. He also made deceptive claims such as that there was "grade inflation" at the higher education level by relying on a study that claimed that SAT scores could predict over sixty percent of the variability in freshman GPA. In fact, SAT scores can predict less than twelve percent of freshman GPA and none at all after that. The study on which Murray relied was conducted in 1995 with only 41 colleges, most of which were private and selective and thus not representative of the college going population as a whole. Gatto points out that in the book "The Bell Curve", Murray deliberately ignored the sucess of Marva Collins and other teachers of poor, inner city children. Collins orignally had her children in a private, Catholic school and pulled them out because they weren't being educated and so she homeschooled them. Collins' success, as Gatto observes, destroys the myth of the 'bell curve' and Murray's entire book.

"What happens to the family whose parents are illiterate? What happens with the family in whom both parents desire to work? What happens to the parent who has an autistic child is is unequpped to know how to educate her?"

The family is illiterate precisely because of our educational system, which is broken A way would be to hire a private tutor. In the second case, technology has advanced to the point where you can work from home on the computer and make a decent salary in many cases. In the third case, there are many curriculum packages and books designed to help parents like 'Homeschooling the Child wth Autism: Answers to the Top Questions Parents and Professionals Ask' by Patricia Schetter and Kandis Lighthall. The reason why education isn't like other services is because it isn't a service at all. It's something that goes on all the time in or out of school. Plumbing, car maintanence, and the like are useful but that doesn't mean that they're special or that they're necessary. Academic education is valuable and should be the posssession of every child precisely because it isn't useful, its just important.

"I have no DOUBT that many kids can flourish educated in the home and that many parents are equipped to do the job. I just distrust the idea that institutional schooling is some unqualified evil."

Think of all the people including statesmen, inventers, and writers who didn't go through institutional schooling. I don't believe we would ever have been blessed with their contributions if they had because institutional schooling stifles creativity, responsibility, and independence,which are all necessary for success in any academic field. Public schools want to indoctrinate kids to the state and private schools want to indoctrinate kids to magical fairies. In both cases, there is indoctrination because SOMEONE ELSE is with your kids. Only parents, in my opinion, should teach their kids because more often than not their kids will be able to think for themselves.

AK,

About Murray: Murray uses standardized tests as a measure for academic achievement because they are the only tests at the moment that are standardized ways to measures academic achievement. I know that sounds circular, and it is: its circularity is necessary because when one is talking about academic achievement and one wants to compare it over time or between groups, one must use the measures available that will allow one to do that. I know there is controversy over what academic achievement tests actually measure and do not measure, but there is no reason to argue with Murray's use of them. For his purposes, they are simply what is available.

True: Murray, from what I recall, never defines what he means by "average." But "average" as a statistical idea is pretty self-explanatory and I"m quite sure that Murray would answer that when he talks of children with average ability, he means those children who, in whatever setting is under discussion, would perform with statistically average numbers were there a numeric way to gauge performance in that area.

And remember, Murray's book was very explicit in denying that he is saying that academic abilities exhaust the possibility of abilities. He makes this very, very clear in the first two or so chapters. But he does point out what really should be a truism: that different people, on whatever task we want to look at, will vary in abilities. I may excel at mechanical tasks and you may excel at prose writing, etc. But if we are to measure the population's ability at prose writing (however that could be numerically ranked) some will do better than others and some will do worse than others.

"The family is illiterate precisely because of our educational system, which is broken A way would be to hire a private tutor."

Are we going to try and explain every academic failing with an appeal to a broken education system as if once 'the system' is fixed, everyone will be capable of mastering x, y, and z at the same level? While I agree with you that biology certainly doesn't begin to explain all academic variance, it is a completely uncontroversial point (everywhere EXCEPT the education community) that some academic failings and excellences can be explained at least partly by one's genetic inheritance. What confirms this even more are twin studies showing that genetically similar/identical folks raised in different environments tend to have the same strengths and weaknesses academically and beyond.

I accept that in many cases, the education system is a large factor in causing illiteracy (as ironic as that sounds!). But there are very likely other factors: genetic inheritance may be one, the interests of family members (some families do not put as much importance on academics as others), wrx.

"The reason why education isn't like other services is because it isn't a service at all. It's something that goes on all the time in or out of school. Plumbing, car maintanence, and the like are useful but that doesn't mean that they're special or that they're necessary. Academic education is valuable and should be the posssession of every child precisely because it isn't useful, its just important."

I'd love to hear more explanation about how something can be important without being useful. I have skepticism that such a case can be made.

To be honest, as much against public schooling as I am, we are hitting on one reason I dislike the laissez-faire attitudesof folks like Gatto. The problem is that leaving education solely to the family and individual - for all the justices of that approach - leave children's education wholly relative to the family's means. The poorest children whose parents are illiterate, negligent, etc, through no fault of their own, will receive minuscule education, while the rich parents will simply get the best tutors and private schools for their kids. As libertarian as I am, I am simply not sure 'equality of opportunity' can be meaningfully achieved with an approach that leaves one's opportunity almost wholly up to chance factors.

"Think of all the people including statesmen, inventers, and writers who didn't go through institutional schooling. I don't believe we would ever have been blessed with their contributions if they had..."

Well, all we can do there is speculate. I agree mostly with the assessment that folks like Franklin and Edison would not have done as much as they did with formal schooling. (Of course, paradoxically,Frankin spearheaded efforts to create public schooling in Pennsylvania, so he may have disagreed!).

But I will say what I said in my review of WoMI. We can provide anecdotes all we want of folks who succeeded without formal schooling. I am equally sure we can provide examples of (a) those who failed miserable without formal schooling and (b) those who succeeded because of formal schooling. As to (b) I can think of two examples solely off the top of my head: Booker T Washington and WEB DuBois. Both attributed their success largely to formal education whether private (Washington) or public (DuBois). I wonder if you or anyone else would have been so bold as to argue that Washington should have fended for himself, being taught by an illiterate mother who had to work extra just to afford one book for her son. Is that the type of equality of opportunity we want?

"In both cases, there is indoctrination because SOMEONE ELSE is with your kids."

Are we implying that homeschooling parents don't indoctrinate their kids? If you are against formal schooling because of its indoctrinating character, you'd better also be against any attempt by parents to homeschool their kids to think a certain way. (And as far as I can tell, getting kids to think a certain way is the goal of education no matter who does it!).

"Only parents, in my opinion, should teach their kids because more often than not their kids will be able to think for themselves."

Well, most parents who homeschool use religious curriculum and homeschool so as to raise their children into a particular cult, I mean, faith. So, I don't see that parents have any edge on the government in avoiding indoctrination.

Kevin Currie-Knight,

"But "average" as a statistical idea is pretty self-explanatory and I'm quite sure that Murray would answer that when he talks of children with average ability, he means those children, who in whatever setting is under discussion, would perform with statistically average numbers were there a numeric way to gauge performance in that area."

But if every child is different from one another, then there isn't a way to detemine statistically what an 'average' performance would be precisely because no one child is alike. Notice that you said "were there" rather than "there is". I've found it amusing that standardized test makers get angry when one points out that their tests are unreliable and they retort back that, well, they aren't supposed to be reliable. If they aren't reliable, then they shouldn't be used in the first place! Murray and other psychometricians like to impose uniformity on differences in order to attempt to explain differences because without some arbitrary, unreliable 'norm' that creates its own differences, it becomes impossible to conjure away the resulting differences in scores with ad hoc hypotheses.

Gatto wisely observed that "learning in the training ground of the classroom is dumbed down into pieces that anyone, however dumb, can memorize and operate. This allows progress to be quantified to track students thoroughout their careers with the great irony being that it's not intellectual growth that grades and reports really measure, but obedience to authority. That's why regular disclosures about the lack of correlation between standardized test scores and actual performance do not end the use of these surveillance mechanisms. What they measure is the tractability of the student, and this they can do quite accurately."

"Are we going to try to explain every academic failing with an appeal to a broken educational system as if once 'the system' is fixed, everyone will be capable of mastering x, y, and z at the same level?"

Actually, the reason why most kids don't do well in our educational system, as Gatto has repeatedly demonstrated, is that school is about sorting and selecting rather than teaching and learning. You mention 'genetic inheritance' as a cause for academic problems. You nor Murray never provide any evidence to back up that claim, a claim I've heard so many times that it makes me laugh. How can someone's genetic makeup(with the possible exception of rare pathological effects) posssibly affect learning anything? The reason why twin studies(at least those that are credible!) have shown some correlation is that physical appearance affects the way that people are perceived and treated by others. Two twin girls, for example, who are tall and wear glasses are likely to be treated with a mixture of awe and curiosity by different people in different enviroments for reasons that have nothing to do with biology but with societal norms that create perceptions of how different sexes are supposed to learn, dress, eat ,etc. Individuals that are twins will act in certain ways and be treated the same way by different people because of the enviroments that result to match people's perceptions of the individuals.

I find it interesting that you say that "as much against public schooling as I am", you even take the side of 'genetic inheritance' proponents at all. If that were hypothetically the case, then in reality you are saying that public schooling is in fact okay, its just the kids that are the problem. For someone who says that it may work for some kids and not others, it runs counter to common sense to turn around and claim that the whole system is bad as you just said. Either the system is to blame and is unreformable or it is reformable, in which case the problem is the kids themselves. It is those who see the system as reformable who are the ones who are the genetic proponents because they believe that our system isn't shuffling kids in the right way, rather than be against shuffling and any kind of sorting in the first place.

"I'd love to hear more explanation about how something can be important without being useful. I have skepticism that such a case can be made."

That is probably because you see academics as a form of economic utility just as you do everything else due to your libertarian political views. Academics are important and not useful because not all knowledge is useful in every situation. Knowing when Napoleon invaded Russia or what an atom is made up of may not be 'useful' for getting my car fixed or ordering a pizza, but that doesn't mean that those facts are unimportant in and of themselves or not valuable in other situations that are more important than the ones that I mentioned like writing a research paper or doing a science experiment. Can you or Murray seriously argue that a janitor or car mechanic is a more important profession than say a mathematician or a political scientist, as Murray claims to be himself? The former pair are useful for daily life but not for understanding the world all around us.

"I wonder if your or anyone else would have been so bold as to argue that Washington should have fended for himself, being taught by an illiterate mother who had to work extra just to afford one book for her son. Is that the type of equality of opportunity we want?

Washington, as far as I know, was taught the basics in reading and math by his older half brother Lawrence and did most of his studying on his own(including learning to speak fluent French) while surveying and during as well as after the French and Indian War without anyone else's help. He became a successful general and and leader of a nation without going through institutional schooling, proving that success is more possible if one goes that route. So did Jefferson, Madison, Hancock, Monroe, Nathaniel Greene, Robert Fulton, Phyllis Wheatley, Francis Marion, Aaron Burr, John Jay, John Marshall, Henry Clay, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, Cyrus McCormick, Horace Mann(the founder of public schooling!) ,etc. "Equality of Opportunity" is a way to rationalize inequality of result while learning on one's own or being homeschooled ironically is the best guarantee of equality of result because children who learn that way have the resorces such as books, supplies, and initative to do well and as a result are likely to be the same in this important respect: they're all educated!

"Well, most parents who homeschool use religious curriculum and homeschool so as to raise their children into a particular cult, I mean faith."

I realized I was being too harsh in making my point when I said private schools were trying to indoctrinate kids to 'magical fairies'. The indoctrination aspect isn't religion, which not all homeschool parents use by the way, but who does the teaching. Only the parent can personalize the curriculum and give the child the time needed to master it fully whereas in public or private institutional schooling ,the child must learn what is given when it is given. The benefit of homeschooling is that the child is actually a knowledgeable scholar and not an indoctrinated drone because parents have a special love for their own children, which a schoolteacher doesn't nor could ever have.

"But if every child is different from one another, then there isn't a way to detemine statistically what an 'average' performance would be precisely because no one child is alike."

If that were true, then the idea of a statistical average wouldn't be possible at all (as all things are, strictly speaking, unique). Everyone is a different height, but there is a very easy way to derive a statistical average. When one wants to get a statistical average, all one has to do is measure many individuals using a standardized numerical system (weight, height, performance on a test), add the scores together and divide by the number of participants. Where is your problem with this process?

"I've found it amusing that standardized test makers get angry when one points out that their tests are unreliable and they retort back that, well, they aren't supposed to be reliable."

When have any test makers said that standardized tests aren't supposed to be reliable? In fact, tests such as the Woodcock-Johnson, Gort III, and other academic achievement battery tests usually devote an entire section in their kits to explaining that the tests are reliable. They attempt to justify the items as measuring what they are intended to measure and justify the combination of items as being valid to yield accurate scores (that don't unduly fluctuate over time or yield results inconsistent with other gauges of performance).

I am quite sure you have your facts wrong here, but I'd love you to cite an instance where a test maker suggested that their tests are not meant to be reliable.

"So did Jefferson, Madison, Hancock, Monroe, Nathaniel Greene, Robert Fulton, Phyllis Wheatley, Francis Marion, Aaron Burr, John Jay, John Marshall, Henry Clay, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, Cyrus McCormick, Horace Mann(the founder of public schooling!) ,etc."

Just off the top of my head, I can take issue with a few of these. Jefferson was educated at a parson's school under a pastor, James Murray, and later went to the INSTITUTION of William and Mary College. Madison took a similar path and went to the INSTITUTION of the College of New Jersey, also attended by Aaron Burr. John Jay went to King's College.

And just so we're clear, this was the age where college was roughly equivalent to high school, most of the above folks graduating when they were around 18 or so.

They all received "institutional schooling," just not state education.

'"Equality of Opportunity" is a way to rationalize inequality of result while learning on one's own or being homeschooled ironically is the best guarantee of equality of result because children who learn that way have the resorces such as books, supplies, and initative to do well and as a result are likely to be the same in this important respect: they're all educated! '

So, you would have answered "yes" to my question about suggesting that Booker T Washington would have been best served by homeschooling by an illiterate mother too poor to afford but one book for her son? (Just so you know, Washington was educated by earning his way into a private school, where he worked for tuition. He was not homeschooled.)

"You mention 'genetic inheritance' as a cause for academic problems. You nor Murray never provide any evidence to back up that claim, a claim I've heard so many times that it makes me laugh."

There is scores of evidence in the book Born Entrepreneurs, Born Leaders: How Your Genes Affect Your Work Life, which is something of a literature review of twin, and other, studies of the heritability of traits. You might also want to check this article by Linda Gottfredson, as it refers to evidence that has been amassed. http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/2004schools&g.pdf

Keep in mind that no one is saying that genetics explains all individual difference, and not many folks (certainly not I) am saying that we should lock kids into rigid 'castes' based on ability level. (Even tracking as it is done now generally allow kids flexibility in moving from one 'caste' to another based on repeated assessment.)

"The reason why twin studies(at least those that are credible!) have shown some correlation is that physical appearance affects the way that people are perceived and treated by others."

Have you read any of them? I've read several, and I've not read ONE that measures anything where physical appearance could be a confounding factor. But if you can cite me a study that backs up what you say....?

"I find it interesting that you say that "as much against public schooling as I am", you even take the side of 'genetic inheritance' proponents at all. If that were hypothetically the case, then in reality you are saying that public schooling is in fact okay, its just the kids that are the problem."

I am at a loss for how you can't see the gaping non-sequitor in your above statement! How does my belief that genetics affects ability have any possible connection with whether I support government schooling?

"Either the system is to blame and is unreformable or it is reformable, in which case the problem is the kids themselves. "

And you seriously don't see any but these two possibilities? How is a belief (that I hold) that the system of government education (as government education) is unreformable in any meaningful way incompatible with a belief that genetics affects ability?

"That is probably because you see academics as a form of economic utility just as you do everything else due to your libertarian political views."

Just to warn you, I tend to look at impugning beliefs onto others as the height of immaturity. When did I ever suggest that I see academics simply as a form of economic utility? Or is that simply a stereotype you hold about libertarians that stands in as a substitute for taking them seriously? Next time, you might have the decency to, say, ask me if I hold x rather than guessing that I do based on some lazy stereotype.

"Washington, as far as I know, was taught the basics in reading and math by his older half brother Lawrence and did most of his studying on his own(including learning to speak fluent French) while surveying and during as well as after the French and Indian War without anyone else's help."

You might read his autobiography, then. He was taught very occasionally by his brother, and learned most of his academics in a local schoolhouse. Later, he got into a private academy, where he worked for tuition.

Just to be clear (so that you won't have to guess at what I believe based on stereotypes that you hold), here is a brief outline of what I tend to believe regarding education.

I distrust public schooling primarily because I distrust government's job to to most things. As they are immune to any real feedback mechanism (the majority of government is an unelected segment of the executive branch unaccountable to anyone), I do not trust government schools to do a good job with education.

Notice that this doesn't preclude me (as you are sure it does) of believing in the heritability of traits, including mental ones. As mentioned, I do not believe that heritability begins to explain all variation, and do believe that environment and initiative count for quite a bit of human outcomes, but I do believe that - just like any other trait we know of such as height, cholesterol, dexterity in sports, etc - mental traits must also contain some heritability.

Nor does my distrust of government schools lead me to suspect that all children have equal ability levels are capabilities. In fact, with Albert Jay Nock (Theory of Education in the United States, The, I tend to think that one of the biggest problems with American education is that its standards have gone down and down because of a desire to create the illusion of all students being equal. As a former public school teacher, I have seen so many students be forced to take algebra II who both had no interest in algebra II and not have mastery of some of the basic math concepts necessary for algebra II that one wonders whether they'd be better served taking a class they have more desire for and (as competence often follows desire) more competence for. (One student I had tended to earn low marks in most academic classes, but when he requested to be put into the vo-tech auto mechanic program, he was consistently at the top of his class).

On the other hand, while I do not dislike homeschooling, I question first whether or not most students (unless they are self-starters) would do well there, but more importantly, suggest that a market system of competing private schools is the most likely and probably superior system. Unlike government schools, private schools are subject to immediate feedback (market feedback) but at the same time, do not leave the education solely up to parents (as they have full-time teachers who may be more knowledgeable in subjects). I also think a private school system superior because different schools will be erected to fit different consumer needs: if a child is a self-starter, they can go to a Montesorri school, where if a child has social-emotional issues, they can go to a school with more structure, etc.

Notice that nowhere do I give any reason to suspect that I believe all education to boil down to economic utility (a stereotype about libertarians particularly prevalent in those who don't encounter many of them). I do not believe this. I believe that education should be a mix between providing the ability to perform marketable tasks and the ability to perform tasks that give individual life meaning.

"Where is your problem with this process?"

The fact that an average isn't the same thing as the actual height or test score.

"They all received "institutional schooling", just not state education."

For the record, Jefferson and Madison and the others spent most of their pre-college educations receiving one on one private tutoring just as you mentioned, which isn't the same thing as schooling. William and Mary is a state supported university, which means that Jefferson received some state education(perhaps that's why he had such an affinity for it all his life!) and in any case the instances you cite have nothing to do with institutional schooling as I see it. College isn't the same thing as school. The twelve years prior to college are about following curriculums on a fixed schedule. At college, you can pick out what major you want to take and what courses you want when you want. It's also academically focused whereas school is about "vocational education"(code word for kids who got dumbed down by school), psychotherapy, and obedience to authority.

As for the comment about Booker T. Washington, he and many others "earned" their way into private schools, but that doesn't mean that private schools are better than homeschooling. Washington's mother was illterate because of the sociopolitical system of which schooling was a part that disenfranchised minorities and continues to do so to this day. If you think that any kind of school, even private ones, are great because they are subject to market forces and the teachers are more knowledgeable than the parents(which is pretty insulting to parents by the way), try saying that to all the minorities who are homeschooling their kids because they're sick and tired of both public and private institutional schooling. They don't buy into the 'school choice' rhetoric that you espouse.

I personally find libertarianism to be self-contradicting, since any belief of non-interference in other people's lives,as many libertarians claim to believe in, is a restriction on liberty. That's why some libertarians, including Murray Rothbard, supported the Confederacy and believe in something called 'voluntary slavery' where you should voluntarily give yourself up to someone for their use so that they don't have to force themelves on you. Needless to say, such a view is bizarre and shows a sign of mental instability.

As for the remark about the incompatibility of unreformability of the school system with a belief in genetic causation of mental ability, it is incompatable because the unreformability of the school system presupposes that academic difficulites are due not to the children themselves, but to the nature of school itself. Homeschooling makes just about anything possible: a child can preceed at their own pace, there isn't any "tracking", much of the time no grading or testing, adjusting of curriculum, and no competition from other kids. On the very standardized tests you've mentioned, how is it that homeschooled kids almost always outscore public AND private schooled kids regardless of age,race,gender,and socio-economic status? Its because mental ability isn't 'gentically caused' at all but comes from the enviroment and specifically one that is comfortable and nurturing, which the home is and school isn't.

You assume that heritability means inevitability. Even if mental ability were partly genetically caused, this doesn't mean that it's fixed for life.

A study showing enviromental influence is Floderus,Myrhed Birgetta, Nancy Pederson, and Ingrid Rasmuson. "Assessment of Heritability for Personality, Based On a Short-Form of the Eysenck Personality Inventory: A Study of 12,898 Twin Pairs." Behavior Genetics 10 (1980) pp.153-62.