Santorum often speaks about how he and his wife home-school their children. He devotes a chapter to it in his book, "It Takes a Family," acknowledging that he is "something of a salesman for home schooling and for cyber-schooling," but conceding that it is not for everyone.
On Saturday, he went further, seeming to attack the very idea of public education.
In the nation's past, he said, "Most presidents home-schooled their children in the White House.… Parents educated their children because it was their responsibility.
"Yes, the government can help, but the idea that the federal government should be running schools, frankly much less that the state government should be running schools, is anachronistic."
(Aside from schools for the children of military personnel, the federal government does not actually operate schools. Most U.S. schools are supported primarily by state or local funding, or a combination of the two.)
Santorum said the public education system was an artifact of the Industrial Revolution, "when people came off the farms where they did home school or had a little neighborhood school, and into these big factories … called public schools."
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/02/19/1066368/-Santorum-calls-for-abolition-of-public-schools
