End The Education Plantation Launches Nationwide Grassroots Effort to End “National Disgrace” by Improving America’s Schools

LITTLETON, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--End The Education Plantation, a new nonprofit organization, today launched a nationwide grassroots campaign to fix America’s failing school system by giving every parent in America – regardless of where they live, how much money they have or the color of their skin – the opportunity to send their children to schools offering a quality education.

“We’re asking parents and others to contact the President and members of Congress and to become involved in organizing their friends and neighbors to support this effort.”

“Albert Einstein once noted insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results,” said John Conlin, a self-employed management consultant from Littleton, Colorado, who created End The Education Planation. “We believe America’s schools are a national disgrace and a classic example of the kind of insanity Einstein was talking about.”

“Half of our students drop out before graduating from high school,” Conlin said. “Only one of four incoming college freshmen are college ready. And, in some areas, schools where only five percent of the students are proficient in a subject are common.”

End The Education Plantation is proposing a federal law requiring every state that accepts federal education funds to create Educational Freedom Accounts for every K-12 student. The Education Freedom Accounts would equal at least 95 percent of the average money spent per pupil in each state. Parents could use these funds to send their children to any state-approved school.

The concept isn’t new, Conlin said. “Congress regularly passes laws putting restrictions on federal funds as an incentive for state and local governments to adopt certain policies,” he said. “That’s why we have a national drinking age of 21 and uniform interstate-highway speed limits, for example.”

“The President and Congress could make this change in days if they had the political will to do it or if the American people put enough pressure on them to make them do it,” Conlin said. “We’re asking parents and others to contact the President and members of Congress and to become involved in organizing their friends and neighbors to support this effort.

“We’re a grassroots organization. And we’re a startup. But we can end the national disgrace our schools have become if people get behind us. Education reform consistently fails because it’s imposed from the top down, forcing schools to adopt requirements imposed by a single group of ‘experts.’ Our proposal will put parents and local educators in charge of deciding what works for their children. And it will give every parent a realistic opportunity to choose a school offering a quality education.

“We’re not advocating any specific method of teaching. We’ll leave that to the experts – parents and educators across America. We expect different schools to adopt different methods, based on local needs.”

Conlin has taken a leave from his business to lead the fight for better schools.

“Some of my business associates think I’m nuts for taking this on,” Conlin said. “But my conscience wouldn’t let me ignore the problem any longer. This is a moral issue. Parents in all kinds of areas, not just poor neighborhoods, are forced to send their kids to schools they know aren’t any good. That’s a form of educational slavery. Abraham Lincoln officially ended slavery in 1865 with the Emancipation Proclamation. But in a very real sense our children are slaves to a broken school system robbing them and us of our future. It’s time to free the slaves once more.”

More information about End The Education Plantation and its grassroots effort to end educational slavery in the United States is available at www.EndTheEducationPlantation.org. End The Education Plantation is a temporary nonprofit grassroots organization with one and only one purpose: Give every parent in America the opportunity to send their children to schools offering a quality education.