206. I'm A Flunky, So's My Kid: The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto from archive.org

I'm A Flunky, So's My Kid 

On June 24, 1996, in Franklin County Ohio Common Pleas Court, the attorney for the 
American Federation of Teachers, speaking against Ohio's proposed parent-choice 
initiative, called parents "inconsequential conduits." The Columbus Dispatch quoted 
Dennie Widener, parent of three, as saying, "I can't believe we have to fight for an 



education. I'm a flunky and that's what they are trying to make my kid." Although his 
income was well below the poverty line, Mr. Widener was armed with comparative 
school information that convinced him his own children were being deliberately dumbed 
down. In public kindergarten his youngest daughter had only learned the alphabet, but he 
was fully aware that "at private school they were reading in kindergarten." 

It's Not Your Money