NaturalPedia > Public Schools

Quotes about Public Schools from the world's top natural health / natural living authors

 Email this page to a friend   |  Click here for FREE email alerts

page 1 of 3 | Next ->

"A NEW STEREOTYPE: THE SMART JOCK Lawler's tack runs opposite the trend in American public schools of cutting physical education in favor of increasing study time in math, science, and English — an effort to help students pass tests dictated by the No Child Left Behind Act. Only 6 percent of U.S. high schools offer a daily physical education class. At the same time, kids are spending an average of 5.5 hours a day in front of a screen of some sort — television, computer, or handheld device. It's not surprising that American children are less active than they've ever been." - John J. Ratey, MD, Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain (Get the book.)

"Many schools offer team appointments with your child's teacher, social worker, and psychologist. In public schools that kind of intervention can take years. You don't want to wait until your child is in the third or fourth grade, has become frustrated with school, and is already on a bad track; take charge and ask for a meeting if you think your child's attention span and schoolwork problems have lasted longer than a day or a week. Some children may still need medicine, but a healthy diet could lower the dosage." - J. Douglas Bremner, Before You Take that Pill: Why the Drug Industry May Be Bad for Your Health (Get the book.)

"In a library used by the public schools I stumbled upon a storybook created by a company to promote its antidepressant. I discovered the drug companies screening Iowans for diseases, while their salespeople stood nearby, handing out brochures touting the product that just happened to treat the malady they were being tested for. The companies had moved far beyond being merely the providers of medicines. They seemed to be omnipresent, carefully controlling the flow of information." - Melody Petersen, Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs (Get the book.) "In a campaign in the early 1990s the Magic Foundation, as well as another group, the Human Growth Foundation, had measured the height of children in public schools. The screeners suggested that the shortest children visit their doctors for medical treatment. Most of the schools and parents did not learn that the two foundations had received most of their funding for the school screenings from Genentech and another hormone manufacturer. The foundations said they were not promoting the drugs, but only trying to get children treatment." - Melody Petersen, Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs (Get the book.) "Some researchers blame the large classroom sizes in many public schools, which may make some teachers push for their unruly students to be medicated. Or perhaps in some cases, high-achieving parents have desired high-performing children and believed they could boost their potential by getting them prescriptions. Dr. Lobas lays some of the blame for the rising use of psychiatric medicines by Iowa children on the lack of counseling and other nonmedical help available for parents who are overwhelmed." - Melody Petersen, Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs (Get the book.) "At least one pharmaceutical company had even been able to place a storybook it published in a library used by Iowa's public schools. Solvay Pharmaceuticals had distributed the book Kids Like Me across the country to promote its antidepressant Luvox. The book featured Marc Summers, the host of Double Dare, a children's game show on Nickelodeon. Summers wrote about how he had been diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder, a mental illness he described as a "brain with hiccups" or as a "chemical imbalance." - Melody Petersen, Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs (Get the book.)

"And sure enough he has since stayed very much in the public realm, helping innovate local schools, serving on boards for social organizations, and even teaching in public schools. Here is an example of a man who could've dropped out after his diagnosis but ended up doing just the opposite. By 2015 nearly one-third of the total U.S. workforce will be fifty or older, up from 27 percent in 2005.72 As the proportion of younger workers continues to decline, it will become critical for employers who seek to retain a competitive edge in the marketplace to retain and attract older workers." - Peter J. Whitehouse and Daniel George, The Myth of Alzheimer's: What You Aren't Being Told About Today's Most Dreaded Diagnosis (Get the book.)

"Several Seattle public schools found that the lead concentration in their water fountains exceeded the 20 parts per billion recommended by the EPA. • Many items containing mercury are found in schools. At a school in Connecticut, the simple act of cleaning out a supply closet resulted in twelve broken mercury laboratory thermometers. The school was evacuated and paid cleanup costs totaling six thousand dollars." - Deirdre Imus, Growing Up Green: Baby and Child Care: Volume 2 in the Bestselling Green This! Series (Green This!) (Get the book.) "A report prepared by an environmental coalition that focused mainly on five states with large school-age populations—Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Michigan, and California—concluded that more than six hundred thousand students were attending nearly twelve hundred public schools that are located within a half mile of federal Superfund or state-identified contaminated sites. • Many cleaning products used in schools, such as toilet bowl cleaners, mold and mildew sprays, and antibacterial cleaners contain carcinogens, mutagens, teratogens, and neurotoxins." - Deirdre Imus, Growing Up Green: Baby and Child Care: Volume 2 in the Bestselling Green This! Series (Green This!) (Get the book.)

"If public schools were forced to serve only meals that are BART-positive (i.e., maintaining normal artery dilation), if restaurants were required to inform us which menu items are BART-positive and which are BART-negative, if the labeling on all packaged foods carried information on their BART status, we would have gone a long way toward enlightening citizens and helping them make informed choices about enhancing or destroying their health. Although my BART fantasy may never come true, the basic point is that the place to start is definitely by enlightening the public." - Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., M.D., Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease (Get the book.)

"It's no coincidence that, academically, the district consistently ranks among the state's top ten, even though the amount of money it spends on each pupil — considered by educators to be a clear predictor of success—is notably lower than other top-tier Illinois public schools. Naperville 203 includes fourteen elementary schools, five junior highs, and two high schools. For the sake of comparison, let's look at Naperville Central High School, where Zero Hour began. Its per-pupil operating expense in 2005 was $8,939 versus $15,403 at Evanston's New Trier High School." - John J. Ratey, MD, Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain (Get the book.)

"I knew that a lot of public education was a complete waste of time and that many public schools are nothing more than taxpayer-funded daycare. But even I was horrified to learn that our public schools are turning into mental institutions and forcing children to be dosed on psychoactive drugs just to be there. What happened to the right of children to have an honest education these days?" - Mike Adams, Natural Health Solutions (Get the book.)

"Today, a program known as TeenScreen has emerged in public schools with unfounded claims of preventing suicide attempts in teenagers. It will label teenagers from a survey of questions designed to "catch" suicidal teens. It has a 90% "false positive" rate and generally results in the teen being referred to a mental health system and started on these mind damaging drugs. In the beginning, parents were not even notified or asked for consent to this survey." - Kenneth W Thomas, Ron Gilbert, Gerd Schaller, Side Effects: The Hidden Agenda of the Pharmaceutical Drug Cartel (Get the book.)

"And that is to outlaw the sale and marketing of foods that promote disease, to invest in teaching the public the fundamentals of nutrition, to overhaul our medical schools so that doctors are taught the basics of nutrition, and to reform the nutritional strategies pursued by public schools and hospitals. If we are going to be a healthy, vibrant nation, this is what we're going to have to do." - Mike Adams, The Seven Laws of Nutrition (Get the book.)

"A recent study among juvenile inmates in a correctional facility and young people in public schools demonstrated significant improvements in behavior simply by correcting even a single subclinical nutrient deficiency. The stronger and healthier our cells, the better they will be able to resist injury, disease, and heavy metal toxicity; and if injured, the more likely our cells will recover. Vitamins C and E may be the best-known of the antioxidant vitamins, but many others play a vital role in suppressing and controlling free radicals." - Russell L. Blaylock, M.D., Health and Nutrition Secrets (Get the book.)

"About 20% of all boys entering public schools and about 5% of girls suffer from these diseases, a remarkable statistic given that in 1950, when I first started to practice psychiatry, there were hardly any cases of ADD. One evening, early in 1962, my friend George called me at home to say he was very worried about his youngest son, Ben. Then 9 years old, Ben had become a behavioral problem. He could not learn to read and was making so little progress in school the teaching staff had advised he be prepared for a school for slow learners or for the 'retarded'." - Abram Hoffer, PhD, MD, FRCP(C) and Dr. Jonathan Prousjy, DPHE, DSC, ND, FRSH, Naturopathic Nutrition: A Guide to Nutrient-rich Food & Nutritional Supplements for Optimum Health (Get the book.)

"Public schools were teaching history in your times," I said. "But back to Nathan Pritikin. He was the first to demonstrate that diet alone could relieve the symptoms of atherosclerosis. At autopsy, Pritikin himself was found to have totally clear coronary arteries, even though he'd had rather severe symptoms of coronary atherosclerosis decades before. However, since he wasn't an M.D., his contribution is often ignored. Later, Dean Ornish, M.D., showed by means of arteriograms that atherosclerosis could actually be reversed, using a diet similar to Pritikin's." - Jonathan V. Wright, M.D. and Alan R. Gaby, M.D., Natural Medicine, Optimal Wellness: The Patient's Guide to Health and Healing (Get the book.)

"Having appended one label and prescribed one drug for all 52 million in US public schools, I have no doubt that they would call this under-diagnosis and under-treatment and set about to screen them again so as not to miss the 2nd and 3rd, co-morbid (co-existent) disorders/diseases/chemical imbalances, so as to have semantic justification—if nothing else—for the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th chemical balancers they have in their armamentarium." - Fred A. Baughman, Jr., M.D. and Craig Hovey, The ADHD Fraud: How Psychiatry Makes "Patients" of Normal Children (Get the book.) "President Bush, convinced that the drugging of 17% of the nations 52 million schoolchildren is too many children "left behind"(giving new meaning to "no child left behind") has just launched his own plan to screen all children and employees in the nation's public schools for mental illness: "Bush plans to screen whole US population for mental illness." - Fred A. Baughman, Jr., M.D. and Craig Hovey, The ADHD Fraud: How Psychiatry Makes "Patients" of Normal Children (Get the book.)

"In our public schools, children are routinely dissuaded from taking crack cocaine, meth, or heroin, yet they are put on powerful mind-altering narcotics at the request of school administrators, counselors, and even teachers! Those amphetamines, of course, are the ones used to "treat" ADHD—a disease that's primarily characterized by any behavior the school authorities don't like. Drugs like Ritalin, in my opinion, have become chemical leashes that shut down the natural curiosity, energy, and active minds of young children." - Mike Adams, Natural Health Solutions (Get the book.)

"The use of MSG in foods served to children at public schools Given the evidence of nerve damage and health problems associated with MSG, it would seem prudent to ensure that our children are not exposed to it, especially in environments outside the home - like public schools - where regulatory bodies are able to exert some degree of control over the diets of children. Yet there is absolutely no regulation that limits the use of MSG in school lunches: Both publicly and privately owned cafeterias serving large numbers of people are likely to use MSG." - Mike Adams, Grocery Warning: How to recognize and avoid the groceries that cause cancer, diabetes, heart disease, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and other common diseases (Get the book.)

"For many years, companies have had lucrative deals with public schools to stock vending machines with sugary soft drinks and high-sugar snacks. Although these companies are now withdrawing some of their high-calorie beverages and snacks from schools because of public pressure, we fear that the damage has already been done. In the United States, the giant fast-food and soft drink companies compete for increased sales using marketing plans that resemble military battle plans. With the U.S." - Jack Challem, Stop Prediabetes Now: The Ultimate Plan to Lose Weight and Prevent Diabetes (Get the book.)

"Then, in May 2006, the nation's three top soft drink companies, faced with threats of a lawsuit from the Center for Science in the Public Interest advocacy group, announced that they would voluntarily stop selling caloric soda and iced teas in school vending machines and cafeterias at public schools nationwide by the 2009-2010 school year. The much-ballyhooed deal was brokered by the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, a collaboration between former President Clinton's William J. Clinton Foundation and the American Heart Association." - Connie Bennett, C.H.H.C. with Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D., Sugar Shock!: How Sweets and Simple Carbs Can Derail Your Life-- and How YouCan Get Back on Track (Get the book.)

"Oregon Public Health Institute Published an excellent review of soda contracts in Oregon public schools. www.communityhealthpartnership.org The People's Grocery Numerous innovative, community-based and youth-focused programs to bring fresh health food to West Oakland, California. www.peoplesgrocery.org International Groups Agribusiness Accountability Initiative An international network of experts that recognize how corporations threaten the sustainability of the global food system; provides a clearinghouse of resources. www.agribusinessaccountability." - Michele Simon, Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Back (Get the book.)

"Indeed, the effectiveness of American public schools in the drug pushing business is one of their few success stories. Lilly, the makers of Strattera (a newer ADHD drug, being aggressively marketed), uses a similar approach in attempting to expand the numbers of adults said to have ADHD. In the April 8, 2004, issue of Parade magazine they had an insert that protruded above the top of a page with this question: "Modern Life or Adult ADHD?" On the page below were a series of one-word questions overlaying a series of pictures of a woman in increasing distress: "Distracted?" and "Disorganized?" - Fred A. Baughman, Jr., M.D. and Craig Hovey, The ADHD Fraud: How Psychiatry Makes "Patients" of Normal Children (Get the book.)

"For most cash-strapped public schools, the prospect of donated educational materials, even those plastered with corporate logos, is irresistible. In addition to McDonald's, soda companies are also targeting schools with their own "get healthy" messaging. For example, Coca-Cola lavished $4 million in the fall of 2005 on an educational program called "Live It!" developed for 8,500 public middle schools. The weeklong program featured videos in which cyclist Lance Armstrong and other famous sports figures encouraged children to be active." - Michele Simon, Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Back (Get the book.)

"Pat Robertson I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. —Jerry Falwell I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way—all of them who have tried to secularize America—I point the finger in their face and say, "You helped this happen." - David H. Rippe, Jared Rosen, The Flip: Turn Your World Around (Get the book.)

"From 2003 to 2005, almost every state proposed legislation to address the sale of soda and junk food in public schools. Despite all the activity, results have been mixed. Many state policy makers have heard the rallying cry from nutrition advocates and are doing their best to respond against all odds. But only twenty-one states were successful in passing any bills during that period, and in at least ten instances, the bills were watered down, a result of political lobbying and compromise." - Michele Simon, Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Back (Get the book.)

"Meanwhile, at Berkeley's 15 other public schools, 10,000 students now learn about nutrition, food, health, sustainable agriculture, and cooking through another project, the School Lunch Initiative, headed by Waters and "renegade chef" Ann Cooper, known for her success at the Ross School in East Hampton, New York. "We banned foods with high fructose corn syrup and trans fats, got rid of processed foods, and replaced most vendors," Cooper says. "We cook from scratch, serve fresh fruits and vegetables, and put in salad bars. The kids are getting real food." - Connie Bennett, C.H.H.C. with Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D., Sugar Shock!: How Sweets and Simple Carbs Can Derail Your Life-- and How YouCan Get Back on Track (Get the book.) "It is wrong to use the public schools to deliver private propaganda to impressionable schoolchildren," adds Gary Ruskin, Commercial Alert's other cofounder and executive director. "The purpose of school is to teach kids to read, write, add, and think— not buy junk food like soda pop, candies, gum, and fast foods," Ruskin protests, calling both obesity and diabetes "marketing-related diseases." Dr. Walter Willett of Harvard also aptly argues, "Soda, like smoking, simply has no place in schools." What it comes down to, bemoans Harvard endocrinologist and researcher David Ludwig, M.D., Ph.D." - Connie Bennett, C.H.H.C. with Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D., Sugar Shock!: How Sweets and Simple Carbs Can Derail Your Life-- and How YouCan Get Back on Track (Get the book.)

page 1 of 3 | Next ->

FAIR USE NOTICE: The research quoted here is provided under the protection of Fair Use provisions and published by the 501(c)3 non-profit Consumer Wellness Center for the purposes of public comment and education. Authors / publishers may submit books for consideration of inclusion here.

TERMS OF USE: Read full terms of use. Citations of text from NaturalPedia must include: 1) Full credit to the original author and book title. 2) Secondary credit to the Natural News Naturalpedia as a research resource and a link to www.NaturalPedia.com

This unique compilation of research is copyright (c) 2008, 2009 by the non-profit Consumer Wellness Center.

ABOUT THE CREATOR OF NATURALPEDIA: Mike Adams, the creator of NaturalPedia, is the editor of NaturalNews.com, the internet's top natural health news site, creator of the Honest Food Guide (www.HonestFoodGuide.org), a free downloadable consumer food guide based on natural health principles, author of Grocery Warning, The 7 Laws of Nutrition, Natural Health Solutions, and many other books available at www.TruthPublishing.com, creator of the earth-friendly EcoLEDs company (www.EcoLEDs.com) that manufactures energy-efficient LED lighting products, founder of Arial Software (www.ArialSoftware.com), a permission e-mail technology company, creator of the CounterThink Cartoon series (www.NaturalNews.com/index-cartoons.html) and author of over 1,500 articles, interviews, special reports and reference guides available at www.NaturalNews.com. Adams' personal philosophy and health statistics are available at www.HealthRanger.org.