It’s turned into an education weekend at the old blog.

The failure and pending (or, in-progress) collapse of the “schools” becomes apparent to even more people.

“School finances are in full reverse mode. Whispered in the hallways before every school committee and in every town council chamber is the awesome reality that sales tax and property tax collections are down 25 – 30 percent. The fear is palpable…. It seems to me that Public Ed as we currently know it will be history in about four years. It is a big edifice. It will take a few years to fully implode, but not a decade. There’s no money left to keep it going as it is.”

Let four years come and go unhindered! We should pay to keep it from operating as it is, or was. Read the whole thing – from the insecticide factories to the declining colleges. It’s real and it’s really happening – now.

The solution is, again, homeschooling and/or small neighborhood schooling. Lately, I’ve been taken with the concept of unschooling, which was probably what I needed so many years ago. Would that work for everyone? No. But, the beautiful thing is that we don’t need, and in fact, cannot tolerate any more one-size-fits-none bullshit. All of the details can be ironed out and easier than most imagine.

Over this strange summer, multiple people have suggested that I found a school. It’s funny but I first floated the same idea to some Fed-Soc types back in 2001, in the basement of the Supreme Court of all places. As with the other big news of that year, nineteen years have passed and … nothing. I have looked into the idea. The closest I’ve come to action is a fictional character doing the work. I am not Tom Ironsides. But, I’m still interested.

Dr. I. always envisioned the necessity of an online component, even for a dedicated base school of unrivaled excellence. I think the home, more specifically the UN-schooling way, it the future (as it was the past). My vision of a remote “umbrella” school would be to publish the suggested direction in which parents should initially steer their young students, then getting out of the way, coupled with advisement as needed and a few other minor services. Umbrellas usually act to keep the state at bay. And, “we” could always offer a more intensive or directed courseload for those seeking computer-age direct instruction at a distance.

This scheme, along with multiple projects, one super project, and about six books, I’m slowly working on. If you have an existing or start-up idea on the same lines and you can tolerate a mildly cantankerous iconoclast, then let me know. Otherwise, please stand by: I might lean on some of you for capital. (And I know how helpful you’ve been on that front before…).

A new column is coming at the end of the new week. Stay tuned.