Eight Ways the Public School System is Inhumane
Updated: 7 days ago
When reading the headline you might think that the word 'inhumane' is an exaggeration for the conditions that students live with in our public schools. Is it, though? Americans regularly lament about the state of our country: blaming problems on "the economy", on politicians, or any number of other reasons that are seemingly out of our control. Those issues may certainly be valid; however, we cannot ignore the impact that an inhumane public school system is having on our children and upon society.
“For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit." Luke 6:43-44
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Wasting away their childhood: something they cannot get back
Young children are conditioned to "the rat race" at an early age and this process has become normalized. They are trained to endure long hours of waitng in class; dependency upon an authority figure to provide them with direction on what to do and how to do it (regardless of their skill in the subject matter); doing highly repetititve worksheet assignments, and then even more wasted time in transitioning from class to class, waiting for announcements, and all the other ways that they lose time. School is long enough. And then after school -- many children have to do more school when they have homework and extracurricular activities. They wake up early and must be "on" for the entire day long after the school dismissal bell releases them. This process is inhumane and even adults don't do it!
Children in the public school system are being given no time to just be kids. When was the last time you saw a child play outside in their front yard on their rollerblades or play in the sprinklers on a hot day after school? The reason that you don't see this as often is that children can't. They have no time and their energy is being drained by the long hours that they spend in class and doing homework. Their childhood is literally stolen from them for the entire day up until bedtime in some cases. This is inhumane.
Managing your child's education is part of parenting and many Faux DINK parents do not help their children with their homework at all. Helping your child with homework, communicating with teachers, attending open houses, managing your child's grades and collecting school supplies to help them succeed are all the parent's responsibility. As veteran homeschoolers, this all looks like homeschooling without the homeschool benefits.
Forcing children to sit at their desks for extremely long hours emphasize physical deterioration
Forcing young children to sit quietly at their desks for excessively long hours when their bodies are designed to move, jump and play, is inhumane. They need to be climbing trees, running around, and jumping because their bodies grow and become strong by doing these things. Children should only be required to sit when it is age appropriate and when the activity is appropriate. However, schools have normalized the practice of tethering children to their desks for hours and hours under the guise of education, when it is developmentally harmful to them.
Forced association
Forcing children to coexist with juvenile delinquents and bullies -- or even just other kids that they don't like -- is inhumane. Do you remember when you were paired with another kid to do a project and you had to shoulder all the burden? Or you were forced to sit right next to the kid that spent all his time goofing off in class, while you tried to do school work? Or maybe you were that kid? School violence and bullying has turned into a severe trauma epidemic with news reports of youth suicides, assault and other school violence happening too often.
If people do not follow a code of conduct in a business setting or in the real world, like a dance school or theme park, they will be escorted out, banned from the premises and further legal action may happen as well. But this doesn't happen: this is not the case for public school. Legally, there is nothing schools can do to remove violent juvenile offenders or even just disruptive children from their programs or buildings. Due to the compulsory education laws, bullies and juvenile delinquents are actually required to return to class regardless of their crimes and education is treated as a civil right and responsibility, regardless of whether an individual student is able to coexist with other children.
Nutritional issues
The lack of nutritional food in schools is inhumane
Obesity is a serious, common, and costly chronic disease. More than 2 in 5 U.S. adults have obesity.
Public schools are required (by law) to provide meals for children, either to purchase or through tax payer provided subsidies. However, the options public schools provide are always going to be terrible. Parents regularly complain about how they are: 1) unhealthy, 2) taste terrible, 3) composed of ultra-processed products containing artificial sweetners and preservatives. The school cafeteria is not your kitchen: its an industrial factory line that must serve hundreds or thousands of meals per day, and it has to provide service. Your typical public school cafeteria -- not to mention the poorly funded school -- is going to be serving sub-standard meals, no matter how many times some politician (or even the First Lady) announces a national plan to provide nutritional meals.
An no one is going to make sure children actually eat their parent provided or tax payer funded meal anyways. Have you ever known a kid to eat a whole meal with fruits and vegetables by themselves, without some direction? They like to play instead of eat, not try new foods and if their parents are not there forcing them to eat what's on their plate, they may choose not to eat at all. No one notices if a child over-ate, under-ate or skipped their meal altogether. In fact, many teenager suffer from eating disorders because no one is there monitoring them. Who will stop the child from eating eat chips and soda for "lunch". Eating disorders could easily get undiagnosed due to the lack of oversight from caring adults.
This whole situation is set up to fail. Making sure children eat is a parenting responsibility that schools should not have in the first place. School employees cannot manage every child and make sure that they eat their meal the same way a parent could. If the school day were less hours, children would be sent home out and in the care of a parent who can manage their eating habits.
The solution to subjectively or objectively "bad" cafeteria food and tax payer funded meals is to end school catering completely. Parents should pack a lunch for their children. Obviously. Taxpayers should not be providing "free" breakfast and lunch to every public school child in the first place. It is an excessive waste of tax dollars. There are plenty of private charities and other tax payer funded welfare programs already in place to help those who need meal assistance. Make your child a sandwich!
2,000, Including Students, Sickened in Suspected Food Poisonings from Eating Free School Meals
This kindergarten teacher's skit to illistrates what her students do during lunch time
Approximately 1 in 5 U.S. children and adolescents have obesity. ( CDC Link here )
Click to see this post from a school talking about how they offer choices "Your student COULD have chosen the tray loaded with a taco, seasoned beans, diced tomatoes, shredded cheese, sour cream, salsa, fruit and milk. BUT… your student could also walk away with the much simpler tray — a taco, salsa and milk — and that can still qualify as a complete reimbursable school meal!"
Click to see this video of terrible government school lunches
There are safety issues
Children are at serious risk of choking at school. With high student-to-teacher ratios, basic supervision during mealtimes is virtually impossible. Expecting a small number of adults to monitor a large, energetic cafeteria of eating children is a recipe for disaster. Furthermore, teachers are neither paramedics nor miracle workers. Even when present, without proper training, tools, and crisis management support, they cannot reasonably be expected to handle life-threatening choking emergencies.
Forcing children to undergo risky medical procedures
Public schools legally forcing vaccines upon it's citizens is inhumane. It is inhumane medical tyranny for our state governments to legally force citizens to participate in risky medical procedures like vaccines
Currently, if you and your family choose to exercise your constitutional right not to vaccinate (that is, the right to control your own body) you are probably living a normal life. Post-Covid, your employer has relaxed (or is no longer) enforcing their vaccination requirements, and governments, businesses, and others have given up on trying to force vaccines on you and others. All of the above is true... unless you have a child in the public school system.
Moreover, supporting "religious exemptions" is not a solution as it still allows the government to continue control over this aspect of American citizens. In this case it is medical freedom. Stop normalizing asking the government permission for your freedoms or worse, legally requiring your neighbors to ask permission for their freedoms! .
If you learned that a business or a restaurant required vaccine passports in order to use their services or enter their facility in 2026, there would be public outcry for the boycott of their company and their business would likely suffer, and rightly so. There is no boycott in public schools since we pay taxes for their existence and many will blindly continue to vote for more tax dollars to support public "education" despite this inhumane practice. The only way to boycott public schools is to lobby to defund or cut funding of their programs.
The criminal teacher epidemic
Putting young children in the care of predator adults is inhumane. Teachers are making the news almost daily for crimes against children. The criminal teacher epidemic is so severe, that it has gotten the attention of the federal Department of Education. Click to See what the Department of Education is doing to combat this very serious, inhumane issue.
You're probably thinking: "Sure, but these are all exceptions." NO! Its not an exception to have 20 to 30 students left with a single adult in charge. In any other context, if a private business or organization establishes an environment, and then criminal activities or harrasment occurs in that environment, that private organization will be held liable in court. However, the same does not occur in the public school system. There's no method to effectively police a teacher or public school staff member from engaging in criminal conduct, because inevitably, how can this policing be done? Private organizations can be self-policing, since -- if your boss or a co-workers becomes too forward with you -- you can always walk out. Can a child do this? That is, does a child have the mental capacity and maturity to know when a teacher -- who they have been told to follow -- is doing something wrong? How can a child know the difference between unacceptable behavior and acceptable conduct, especially when that teacher is in charge of social, behavioral, and academic standards? (a conflict of interest). They can't!
Grade inflation
Children are being set up to fail at the tax payers expense. It is no secret that schools are passing children who do not complete assignments or meet reading and math proficiency standards. Allowing young adults to graduate high school with a "high school diploma" without the skills needed to be successful, contributing members of society -- is inhumane. These children that are being given diplomas or passing grades, when they can barely read or do basic math problems are being led into a world in which they are destined to fail, which will cause enormous hardship upon themselves, others around them, and society.
Excessive taxation to support the public school system
One of the reasons the cost of living is so high is due to the high budgets of local tax funded, government services, like the public school system. Government spending inherently causes inflation, which raises the cost of everything, whether a federal, state, or local level. What if you only paid for fire, police, and road maintenance in your property taxes and everything else had a crowd funding page? Americans would have vastly more financial freedom.
Taxing citizens to an excessive degree is inhumane. Obviously, we are taxed for government services that go beyond public school expenses, however, a large portion of taxes are forced upon citizens for "education" and inhumane practices like the ones described in this article. Also, it seems like there are new school budget increases every single year which increases our taxes and cost of living.
The public school has a bloated budget funded by your tax dollars. According to the Census Bureau, the average cost per pupil per year is $15,633. Moreover, this amount only includes the annual operating expenses: when the costs of capital investment are included, the cost per pupil skyrockets to between $42k to $64k per year (amortized), depending upon the state. And in many states, such as California, these costs balloon even higher when taking into considering the large public pensions costs that the general public pays for school teachers and an administrative state. In California the annual expenditures for public education exceeds 12.8 billion dollars.
The high taxes and high cost of living is making it harder for families to pull their children out of public school to homeschool or place in private schools. Click to read why school choice voucher scams are not the solution to this problem.
Moving forward
Many of you will suggest homeschooling as a solution to these inhumane practices occurring in public schools. As veteran homeschoolers, we obviously support that. However, it is not enough to homeschool because public schools will continue to exist if we continue to pay for their existence. Fight to lower school budgets. Vote no on public school budget increase initiatives. Stop supporting the inhumane public school system!
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