The Educational Octopus in Venezuela

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — President Hugo Chavez threatened on Monday to take over any private schools refusing to submit to the oversight of his socialist government, a move some Venezuelans fear will impose leftist ideology in the classroom.

All Venezuelan schools, both public and private, must submit to state inspectors enforcing the new educational system. Those that refuse will be closed and nationalized, Chavez said.

Education based on capitalist ideology has corrupted children's values, he said. "We want to create our own ideology collectively — creative, diverse."

A new curriculum will be phased in during this school year, and new textbooks are being developed to help educate "the new citizen," added Chavez's brother and education minister Adan Chavez in their televised ceremony on the first day of classes.

MP: Venezuela already ranks #135 out of #141 for Economic Freedom in 2007, according to the Cato Institute, are they trying to lower their ranking with educational "reforms"?

Related Quote: "Every politically controlled educational system will inculcate the doctrine of state supremacy sooner or later. . . . Once that doctrine has been accepted, it becomes an almost superhuman task to break the stranglehold of the political power over the life of the citizen. It has had his body, property and mind in its clutches from infancy. An octopus would sooner release its prey."

--Isabel Paterson, The God of the Machine (1943)

(Thanks to Larry Reed.)