Porcfest XI

Educating a child to be able to leverage her unique abilities to take a powerful place in an unknowable future is a top responsibility of any parent. Artificially constraining schooling alternatives may be one of the most cruel things government does: it reduces the ability of a wide diversity of children to take their powerful place, and it makes families think that the inevitable mismatches between their diverse children and the one-size-fits-few school must be a problem with the child.

But there is a revolution brewing, and we are at its forefront. It will quietly undermine and overwhelm the evil of the government school monopoly with a wide diversity of schooling alternatives that will eventually match the diversity of our children.

This class will overview a typology of the alternatives that parents will have, and will discuss the pros and cons of each choice for the parent's goal for their child. Public schools, afterschooling, charter schools, private schools, parochial schools, self-directed schools, homeschooling, internet schools, hybrid schools, micro schools, co-ops, learning centers, resource centers, hack spaces are all options for your child.

If you are considering having a child, you will want to know how you can get past the government roadblocks to provide the best education for your unique child's unique future.

Dennis Pratt is head of Parents Decide ("My money? My child? My decision!") and runs Alternatives to Public School in Massachusetts.