The Reason We Learn

Have you ever read a book on a subject you thought you already understood inside and out—only to realize something so blindingly obvious, you feel almost foolish for not having seen it before? That’s how I felt reading Ian Underwood’s Rethinking Fairness in Education and Stop Lying About Education Savings Accounts . In these two books, Ian takes the issue of money in education—a complicated and co...

In this video, I challenge the way “freedom” is being defined and sold to us today. Using the debate over school choice and vouchers as a case study, I argue that more government-approved options aren’t freedom at all—just a rebranded form of control. I share my own definition (“the right to say no”) and ask: if the state still holds the strings, can we really call it freedom? PS: If adults strugg...

This Substack-only segment from my conversation with Matt Bowman, co-founder of OpenEd, is a focused follow-up to our longer YouTube interview. In this shorter discussion, we step back from the big picture and ask a more immediate question: What should parents be asking themselves before committing to another year of school? If you’re sitting at the kitchen table wondering whether the conventional...

In this episode, I sit down with veteran educator James Furey to unpack a question many parents and educators grapple with: What makes a school “good”? We explore how standardized test scores, college admissions, and school rankings often fail to capture the true quality of education. James shares insights from his years in the classroom, discussing the impact of school culture, teacher autonomy,...

What If School Is Unconstitutional? How compulsory education laws violate your First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendment rights What’s the underlying assumption behind compulsory education laws? That you, as a parent, will neglect your child — or more to the point, are already neglecting your child. That’s the premise the state must adopt in order to justify compulsory education. If the government truly...

When teachers don’t teach, students don’t learn everything they’ll need to know to be successful in school, or in life. It’s as simple as that. Contrary to the assertions of the PhDs from Columbia and UPENN, most students do not, and will not, “discover” reading and writing proficiency, never mind proficiency at math, science, history, civics, and logic (what some call “critical thinking”). My goo...

What are your children learning in school about man and what he should do in life? What kind of "self" are they being encouraged to develop? Do you even know? James Lindsay joins me to discuss the Marxian religious questions our children are being taught to ask in school, how the answers are purging enlightenment values from American culture, one lost "self" at a time. An American-born author, mat...

How often have you heard someone say “We have a mental health problem!” in the aftermath of a school shooting? It’s usually the thing you hear immediately after “We need commonsense gun control,” or "gun-free zones make easy targets." I’m going to guess it’s roughly every time, and it’s even possible you’ve said it yourself. Who could blame you? No one would deny the fact that anyone shooting up a...

Have you ever had a negative gut reaction to something that everyone else was excited about? That was me with EdTech. Everything I’d learned about learning, from brain science, to child psychology and development, told me “This is a bad idea,” but everyone I knew, parents and teachers alike, thought it was just fabulous. Here’s a sampling of what I heard most often from teachers: ”They’ll be so mu...

If you’re new here, you might be surprised to learn that someone as critical of America’s public education system would oppose School Choice, but it’s true. I do. I want education liberty, and that means I’m what’s called a government school abolitionist. That means exactly what you think it means: I want to abolish the government education system in America, at the federal AND state levels. I tru...

We were warned. Almost seventy years ago, reading expert Rudolph Flesch’s bestselling book, Why Johnny Can’t Read, and What You Can Do About It warned Americans of the dangers of using the ‘ look-say ’ method to teach reading rather than phonics. Flesch argued that because look-say teaches students to memorize whole words by sight, rather than phonics, it was ineffective. He also said the simple s...

I want to dig into the topic of “socialization” brought up today on X (see post below from Homeschool_LLC ) because I truly believe the enduring myth he describes is likely the primary reason most people who could and would be inclined to homeschool their children, choose not to. “What about Socialization” was, and still is, the most common question I get, often followed by “but aren’t you afraid...

This post is not the first I’ve ever seen on social media from someone insisting we’re not “qualified” to homeschool our own children. I’ve addressed this before on my YouTube channel many times, within the context of other videos, but here I’m trying to give you some responses you can use to push back on people who say you’re not qualified (because you are). 1. Define Qualified? The first thing y...

I saw this post on X implying that giftedness should correlate with material success in life, and had to respond. Myths like this are neither rare, nor benign, so they deserve to be challenged. As tempting as it is sometimes to knee-jerk reject posts like the one Seamus reacted to because they use woke sounding words like “neurodivergencies,” don’t . There is usually a kernel of truth to woke clai...

Imagine growing up and not knowing your parents were Holocaust survivors…That was childhood for my guest today, Anna Salton Eisen. Anna is the author of The 23rd Psalm: A Holocaust Memoir, The Twentieth Anniversary Edition (A National Jewish Book Awards Finalist in 2022) and Pillar of Salt: A Daughter’s Life in the Shadow of the Holocaust. She is the daughter of two Holocaust survivors and executi...

You may have noticed that Mental Health, sometimes referred to as “wellness” or wellbeing, has, both in terms of funding, and staffing, become job 1 for most schools, and you may even have heard that students “can’t learn” until they’ve been seen, heard, and assessed psychologically. Earlier, I sat down to talk with Jake Wiskerchen, marriage and family therapist, national certified counselor, and...

If you haven't yet watched the Hulu miniseries Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence, I highly recommend that you do. I watched it, and invited Josh Slocum, from  @DisaffectedPodcast  here to discuss coercive control -- what it is, and how it works -- because he's a graduate of Sarah Lawrence, and because he is an expert in cluster-B personality disorders, and while not all who a...

Jon England is the Education Policy Analyst at Libertas Institute. He is a fourteen-year veteran public schools who became frustrated with the lack of innovation, transparency and accountability in the system, and decided to leave the system and join Libertas to work on empowering parents, and defending parental rights. Find Jon on X @Principal_Jon Website: https://libertas.org TIMESTAMPS 03:16 -...

Professor William B. Allen is the Emeritus Dean of James Madison College, and Professor Emeritus of Political Philosophy at Michigan State University. I had the privilege of hearing Professor Allen speak at the Alumni Summit on Free Expression hosted by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, also known as ACTA, and the Alumni Free Speech Alliance, also known as AFSA. The title of his talk wa...

Wilfred Reilly and I look back on the 70 years since Brown v Board of Education to ask if we are trying to re-segregate American Education, if so why, and what does "segregation" post Brown vs Board? We also take a look at recent statistics concerning the racial achievement gap, and Wil gives his take on new questions to ask about achievement gaps in general. Wilfred Reilly is an Associa...

Ron Coleman joins me again, this time to talk about legal education and its impact on the practice of law, and the justice system in America. Ron Coleman is a Partner at the Dhillon Law Group and resident in its New York Metro office. Ron is a commercial litigator with extensive first-seat trial and appellate experience who focuses on torts of competition such as trademark infringement, unfair com...

Join me for a conversation with Justine Deterling, founder of a new resource for families called Gender Health Query, a medical and queer theory watchdog organization with a focus on same-sex attracted youth. The site provides extensive information on many topics relating to pediatric medical transition of gender dysphoric youth and the impacts of contemporary gender ideology. Justine is an LGB hu...

Freedom of expression on college campuses has been under assault across America for years, and at Cornell University the problem was particularly bad, so a group of alumni decided they'd had enough. Through hard work and dedication, they persuaded the President to launch a university-wide free expression initiative. Cornell Alum Paul Rossi and Cornell Professor Randy Wayne join me to discuss h...

What if we've known exactly how to educate children so they continue to love learning throughout the process, for thousands of years? What if "progressive" education is taking us backwards? Michael Strong, Founder and Chief Visionary of The Socratic Experience joins me to discuss! Michael Strong is one of the most experienced designers of innovative school programs in the United Stat...

In this episode, I'm joined by Diana Blum, a mom featured in Eli Steele's new documentary, "Killing America." We will discuss the film, but can only show stills because YT will not allow the film of any clips of it to be shown on this platform. Please visit the link below watch the film prior to watching this episode to fully understand what we will be discussing. https://rumble....