Interview with Dale Reed

Dale & shovel in Antarctica

by Tammy Drennan 

I met retired electromagnetic engineer and champion of independence Dale Reed over ten years ago by way of a discussion loop associated with the Alliance for the Separation of School & State. The loop was a place where we talked about government involvement in schooling and held each other to rigorous standards of thinking and expression. Dale struck a great balance between stirring the pot and being an encourager. He’s been a stalwart supporter of many freedom causes – and in some unconventional ways.

Today, Dale and his wife Katy enjoy retirement in Seattle where he walks, throws boomerangs and continues to stir pots on-line and support the preservation and promotion of liberty.

During their child-rearing years, Dale and Katy’s two sons started out in public school, but when it became clear those schools were not meeting their expectations, they switched (when the boys were 11 and 12) to private. Dale writes:

“Katy had been carrying her folding lawn chair into their grade school classrooms but after she attended a Preparing For Junior High meeting where a bearded counselor told about one hundred nodding-in-agreement parents that they should “back down, back up, and back away” from their fast-becoming teenagers she gave up and started shopping for a non-government learning environment.  Homeschooling was not legal yet.”

Katy already had some experience with private education. She had run her own “Pooh Corner Pre-School” while Dale was teaching at the University of Colorado and working toward a higher degree.

Here is Dale’s story, in brief, in his own words.

Tammy: What is your educational background, as well as your “career history”?

Dale: Mostly government schools except for one year of Military School when I was in tenth grade. We were living in Denver and our father thought Dean [Dale’s brother] and I should try out a private school where an old friend of our father taught.

We lived and went to school in Lakewood, Colorado, El Monte, California, Salt Lake City, Pomona, California, back to Denver then to Wheat Ridge, Colorado where I, then Dean, graduated from High School. I attended (earned a BS/EE) the University of Colorado, in Boulder, on a tuition-free scholarship (top five high school graduates earned these merit scholarships and I was the second in my class), then my senior year Dean and I lived together as Dean started, but never finished, studying Meteorology. Later (after marrying Katy), I returned to the University to teach and earn a MS/EE.

After I graduated with the BS, I trained at the National Bureau of Standards, in Boulder, then spent a year at Ellsworth Station, Antarctica during the International Geophysical Year studying the Ionosphere and Cosmic Rays. Returned home (Boulder) for a brief try in Geology at the University of Colorado before quitting and driving my little open top red MGA to Fairbanks, Alaska.

Back to the ice at Byrd Station to study the Ionosphere, Radio Noise, and Very Low Frequency phenomena. Home to marry my secretary (Katy), father two sons, teach and earn my Masters, then to Seattle for thirty years at Boeing.

Fifteen years in Aerospace and fifteen years in Commercial. Protected the Minuteman system against the NEMP threat, trips to the Pacific Ocean, etc., eventually designing the shielding of the fly-by-wire 777 against the Induced Lightning Threat. Turned a Sword into a Plowshare applying the electromagnetic codes developed for the military to commercial purposes.

Tammy: When and how did you first come to believe the state should not be involved in education?

Dale: Heard Stephen Arons use the phrase “Separation of School and State” during a speech at a local Catholic High School.  Always had libertarian tendencies (from my dad) and our sons were not prospering in the local government schools. Trucked Marshall Fritz (and all his stuff) from Seattle to (ferry ride) Jim Boyles’ church so Marshall could give his speech and sell his tapes.

So between Arons, Marshall, John Holt, Jerry Mintz and a couple boxes of other materials in my attic I started supporting alternatives to the present establishment.

Tammy: How did you meet Marshall?

Dale: Depends on the definition of “meet.”  I was involved in libertarian/Libertarian Party activities and may have talked to someone in a SepSchool booth or possibly visited the Advocates for Self Government [Marshall founded the Advocates], whatever. 

But I actually pressed the flesh for the first time at a friends of his apartment near Green Lake, Seattle when I filled the back of my 1990 Dodge 4×4 with the Great Big Winch Bumper! and trucked him across Puget Sound to Whidbey Island. 

Tammy: What are some ways you’ve promoted independent education?

Dale: Participated in tens of homeschooling lists, attended a few homeschooling conventions, wrote and had published many letters to the editor, invited private school folks to have tables at Libertarian Party conventions, and at one I made sure that David Friedman talked to our local Sudbury Valley school. Ran for school board. Lots of stuff including Logo1.doc and Math1.doc [see resource list below] and my participation on the SepSchool lists.

Tammy: Tell me about running for school board. I recall you having pencils or pens made up with some provocative saying on them. What prompted you to run?

Dale: Pens and window stickers but that was for Katy’s projects.  The “gold” ball point pens had three things printed on them:  “Visit Your Child’s Classroom,” “Parent’s Duties,” and “Parent’s Responsibilities.”  The window sticker said “Visit Your Child’s Classroom.”

Prompted to run by my experiences attending hundreds of school board meetings.  Mostly my own Highline School District but also ”county” school board meetings.   In Washington State we have three levels of school board and I ran for two of the levels.  I thought I could do a better job and I wanted to learn about running and if I won I would learn about the government schools from the inside.  

Previously I had been elected and participated in many different ways with the engineering union (SPEEA) that represented the engineers and some techs at Boeing. Learned a lot for sure being an insider rather than just throwing rocks from the outside.

[Read Dale’s surprising School Board campaign Position paper.]

Tammy: Can you think of a particular rewarding experience related to your efforts?

Dale: Not really. I expected the homeschoolers to come up with better ways of learning but even though I keep reading (I used to subscribe to many) homeschooling magazines in the library I am disappointed in their lack of new ideas.

Tammy: What’s the most effective thing you think people can do to promote independent education besides removing their own children from public schools?

Dale: Our sons, and most of the children in the neighborhood, could add and subtract in different number systems before they started school.  They learned as they helped me saw, split, and stack my winter wood. Many have dropped by over the years to say how much they enjoyed visiting our home because of all the interesting books and other things to learn from — especially the summers when the yard was filled with children participating in drawing/designing contests that I judged when I got home from work. Others remember all the trips we took to the seashore, mountains, skiing…  Lots of opportunities to learn when you are with Pooh and Piglet in the Hundred Acre Woods.

Tammy: How much of an impact on our future liberty do you think our continued devotion to state schooling will have?

Dale: I like to compare it with a term we engineers, especially electrical engineers, have called “positive” feedback.  And positive does not always mean good.  It is what happens in a large concert hall when the amplifiers are turned up too loud and the sound bouncing off the walls gets back in the microphone where it is amplified again until terrible Squeals and Howls result.   

But better ways of learning what we want to learn when we want to learn it are being developed.  Can’t just turn off the government schools without better alternatives.  Nature abhors a vacuum and all that.   

Tammy: Are there any books you would recommend for someone new to the idea of schooling free of state involvement?

Dale’s book list and other resources.

Two documents Dale created to help homeschoolers and other parents; they contain a mountain of good ideas, book and web resources and links: Math1.doc and Logo1.doc

“The Almanac of Educational Choices, Private and Public Learning Alternatives and Homeschooling” by Jerry Mintz 

“Beyond Discipline, From Compliance to Community” by Alfie Kohn, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Alexandra Virginia     

“Separating School and State, How to Liberate America ’s Families” by Sheldon Richman

‘The Myth of the A.D.D. Child, 50 ways to Improve Your Child’s Behavior and Attention Span Without Drugs, Labels, or Coercion” by Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D.

“School’s Out, A Radical New Formula for the Revitalization of America ’s Education System” by Lewis J. Perelman

“Dumbing Us Down, The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling” by John Taylor Gatto

“The Teenage Liberation Handbook, how to quit school and get a real life and education” by Grace Llewellyn

“Short Route to Chaos, Conscience, Community, and the Re-Constitution of American Schooling” by Stephen Arons

“The Connected Family, bridging the digital generation gap” by Seymour Papert

“The Art of Education” by Linda Dobson

“Freedom and Beyond” by John Holt

“A Sense of Self, Listening to Homeschooled Adolescent Girls” by Susannah Sheffer

“Education and Ecstasy” by George B. Leonard

Education: A Christian Perspective

by Tammy Drennan

The Old Schoolhouse Magazine¹ has been running a feature in The Homeschool Minute e-newsletter in which people share their top ten reasons to stick with the homeschool journey. The entries range from funny to touching to philosophical, and they all serve the excellent purpose of encouragement.

But there’s really only one reason for the Christian to reject public schooling – God did not give you children to house and feed on behalf of the government.

God gave you children to house, feed, nurture and educate on behalf of none other than himself. He stamped your children with his image, not Caesar’s, and not even the church’s. Then he placed those God-stamped children in your care with the profound and serious call to rear them to be God-obsessed – to honor and love and obey God, to think about him and follow him day and night, to long and work to become more like him, to grow into ambassadors for him.

God placed your children in your hands to ensure that as they grow his image becomes sharper and more pronounced in them, clearer, and unblurred.

The goal of public schools has absolutely nothing to do with God. However “good” a school might be (and what does that mean?), it aims to shape your child into something that neither considers nor needs God to navigate life. God is simply not relevant to the image public schools work to stamp on your child.

And don’t fool yourself into thinking they are not trying to stamp your child with any image at all. Education has a purpose, no matter who is doing it. Educators, be they in schools or be they you, are pursuing the shaping of children for some purpose. That purpose may be good citizenship, a workforce to promote the vision of the state for the future, the dream of a nation that beats all other nations on tests, or the desire to rear up a new generation of men and women doggedly in pursuit of God and his excellence.

Some people believe they see signs that God has called them to choose government education for their children. Maybe they get a flier in the mail that offers free state virtual school for their children. Or maybe the local high school has an excellent sports program that an athletically gifted son would like to take advantage of, or an incredible music program that might open doors for a talented daughter. Maybe it’s the school’s lab for your science-oriented child or the art program for your budding painter or sculptor.

Do not make the mistake of taking these things as signs. They are temptations. They leave God out of the equation, and God never gives us the option of leaving him out of any equation, above all the equation of education.

If it is God’s design for your son to have a football career or for your daughter to become a famous singer, he will make a way. But don’t be surprised if he has not chosen these paths for your children, talent notwithstanding. Think of Eric Liddell² and his incredible gift of speed, yet his work for God led him to minister in China, where he ended up in a Japanese internment camp during World War Two and gave to others until illness cost him his earthly life. God may want to use a beautiful singing voice in an orphanage in Romania rather than in concert halls and on CD labels. Don’t mistake American ideals and definitions of success for Biblical ones.

God’s definition of success has nothing to do with America’s definition of success. The two may sometimes be compatible, but that is because America submits to God’s view and not the other way around. God’s ways are not our ways, and all too often our ways are not God’s ways.

This article would not be complete without addressing the very real problem of those who find themselves with no choice but government schooling. There are fewer than many think – there are plenty of people who think or claim, for any number of reasons, they have no choice who really do. They may have their priorities mixed up or they may be sincerely misjudging their situation.

But there are some who truly do not have a choice. This does not mean that God has ordained government schooling for their children. It means that fellow believers and churches have failed in their role to nurture and provide for their own, to secure the kingdom of God before turning to woo the world to God’s ways. It is not a reflection on God’s ways but a sad sign of our misplaced priorities. Our job is to set our priorities, as individuals and as churches, in line with God’s priorities and remedy the situation.

Finally, it is impossible to talk about this topic without also addressing the “salt and light” issue – the idea that God is calling us to make missionaries of our children.

Has God called any parent to send a child into an ungodly culture for the express purpose of fitting that child for life yet also for the purpose of having that child try to turn the culture on its heels and convince it that it is on the wrong path? How is it we send our children into a culture to be both shaped by it and to change its shape, to be educated by it and to educate it, to respect its leaders and get along with its followers yet reject what they stand for and how they live?

God does not even call adult missionaries to embrace the tutelage of pagan cultures while trying to also change them. Does the world of public schooling need a missions outreach? No doubt. Has God called us to send forth our children as missionaries disguised as students to do the job? We know he has not and that we do not seriously believe that in sending our children to state schools we are actually enacting the Great Commission.

May we pursue more avidly the godly nurture and education of our children and may we take more seriously our duty to help others do the same.

1. www.thehomeschoolmagazine.com

2. http://www.heartoscotland.com/Categories/eric-liddell.htm

4th of July Freedom Articles

Can We Handle Freedom of Education?

One thing that must happen on the road to freedom from state schooling is a complete redefinition of education. There is no choice. (Article includes ideas and links to resources.)

Did Public Schools Make America Great?

“By 1940,” according to public school historian Lawrence A. Cremin, “the average American adult had completed 8.6 years of schooling.”** That’s an average of about an eighth grade education 164 years into our nationhood – in school years that were considerably shorter than they are today. By that time, we’d built a phenomenal infrastructure, been through many wars…

Fake Freedom

So, you’ve decided to walk away from state schools and never look back. Now you’re free, right? Probably not. Just as a slave isn’t truly free until he sheds not only his master’s chains but his master’s definition of him…

Free Bodies. Enslaved Minds.

Freedom is the power that will overcome our fear, but we must embrace it in all its forms. It is no good to be physically free and intellectually enslaved.

Freedom is a Big Muscle

The good news is that freedom is one big muscle. Exercise it every day and it gets bigger and stronger. Strong produces confident. Confident produces fearless. Fearless produces committed.

Righteous Indignation

A little righteous indignation, please.

One of the things that fueled the American Revolution was old-fashioned righteous indignation — who did King George think he was…

Why do we yearn for affirmation from the state — as if we are inadequate until our government tells us otherwise? Where is our sense of pride and self-reliance, of confidence and independence? Where is our outrage that a government that is supposed to be under our critical eye is instead the critic and we the critiqued?

The Guts to Keep Our Liberty

Free people are not intellectually prepped for life by their government. In a free country, the government does not dictate or even predict the future then fashion the citizens to fit it. That’s how they do it in dictatorships. That’s how Hitler and Stalin and Mao did it. That’s how dozens of tyrannies and wanna-be tyrannies do it today.

Why Independence? Why Now?

Education is the heart muscle in a society. All other freedoms become weak and eventually non-existent without freedom in education. Freedom of the press, of assembly, and yes, even of religion, mean little where the state controls the intellectual and social development of citizens.

Religious Reasons to Choose Freedom

Articles, illustrative stories, a survey, resources to help parents and religious leaders think more deeply about their education decisions.