August 21, 2002 9:12 pm - There's a story in the Washington Times today stating that the California Dept. of Education is pushing for legislation outlawing homeschooling unless the parents have proper teaching credentials. Hmm. Let me get this straight.  Spend decades squandering untold wealth on fads like "new math" and "whole language."  Indoctrinate young minds with left-liberal ideologies like extreme environmentalism, safe sex courses, post-modern thought, and Marxist economics.  Prop up their egos with social promotion and rah-rah self-esteem tactics.  Then send these illiterate and ignorant dolts into the real world to flail about.  If we and they are lucky, they will muddle through with remedial courses and not become a burden on society.  Sure sounds like public teaching credentials are a resounding success! Apparently destroying the minds and futures of a generation of students is not enough.  The evil teachers' unions want to destroy competition and keep their festering day-care prisons as the only game in town.  They want to deny parents the choice of educating their own children - children who routinely out-perform their publicly educated co-horts on objective, standardized tests.  So much for teaching credentials. America was once a free and well-educated country.  No longer.  We are being ruled by the mob, and the mob isn't very bright.