For the first time in his career, Dr. Mark McDonald, psychiatrist and author of United States of Fear: How America fell victim to a mass delusional psychosis, is telling parents to take their children out of the public schools. McDonald says the public-school system "is not only a failure but irredeemable. It is utterly controlled by teachers' unions and advocates, meaning those who go into the schools to proselytize their ideology on your children. They have no other purpose; no other function."

"In an online interview with producer Mikki Willis* of Plandemic Series.com, McDonald said: "We would be better off if all parents pulled their children out of the government schools and either did homeschooling or built their own schools in their local communities. That would cause the corrupt, rotten, termite-infested structure to collapse under its own weight, and we could rebuild at the local level."

McDonald admits he "can hardly believe" he's telling parents to remove their kids from public schools because two or three years ago he would have considered that "extreme and unnecessary. It's not a question of whether the school is good or bad," he adds. "The school is bad. The real question is what are parents willing to do to invest and sacrifice in order to make sure [their] child is given the tools to succeed."

Some parents are listening

Whether parents are aware of McDonald's arguments or are listening to the many other voices warning about today's public-school environment, the recent exodus from public-school classrooms continues. As Education Reporter has noted, many parents removed their children after witnessing first-hand the leftist ideology posing as academics during the COVID-19 shutdowns.

The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), observed in March that "since 2020, more families have been fleeing local district schools for other options." FEE's Senior Education Fellow and host of the weekly LiberatED podcast, Kerry McDonald (no relation to Dr. Mark McDonald) reported that "homeschooling rates have doubled" and that the "pandemic pods" that sprang up during the lockdowns "have evolved into established microschools and co-op arrangements that have worked better for many families than a conventional classroom."

She also cited the rise in enrollment in Catholic and other private schools. "Parents are recognizing that they have many more options for their children's education and are continuing to abandon government-assigned district schools," she said.

In Minnesota, public school enrollment declined this year by another 0.3 percent on top of the nearly two percent decline in 2020-2021, which was the first drop there in a decade. While this percentage may not seem significant, Scott Croonquist, executive director of the Association of Metropolitan School Districts, admitted on Minnesota Public Radio (MPR): "Anytime you experience declining enrollment, the reality is the revenue drops off much faster than you can shed the expenses. That does create a significant financial challenge for school districts." MPR added that while fewer Minnesota families are homeschooling this year, "nonpublic schools saw a 5.8 percent enrollment increase."

Among FEE's additional findings:

• San Diego public schools are losing students at a faster pace than officials expected.


• Michigan public school enrollment is down again this year.


• Rhode Island public school enrollment is down.


• Officials in Oakland, California recently voted to close several public schools due to falling enrollment. In this instance, numbers reflect not only parents fleeing public schools, but those moving out of the state altogether.

A dim view of higher education

When Plandemic Series.com interviewer Mikki Willis asked Dr. McDonald for his take on education at the university level, his reply for parents is "don't bother. The university is a cesspool, a wasteland, an indoctrination camp." His suggestion is that, unless the student is going to a STEM school (science, technology, and math), or possibly preparing to study medicine or law, parents should not waste their time and money. "Your child will leave college believing the U.S. is a hateful, racist country, that men are sexual predators and women are victims of toxic masculinity, and that the only people who deserve to get a leg up are the marginalized classes; a sick, perverse, destructive philosophy.

"There may be no way to correct that after four years," he adds. "You are throwing your children to the wolves if you send them to a university. The schools only get worse the higher up you go. Send them to a trade school instead."

In discussing his book, McDonald says: "Witness that we've moved on from one crisis, which was COVID-19, to the next crisis, which is Ukraine. Why? Nothing changed except the politics. It is a crisis-distraction strategy, and it is intentional so that Americans and those around the world do not have to look and feel and act on the suffering that they witness in their day-to-day lives: economic collapse, open borders, drug addictions, fentanyl overdoses, anxiety, depression, suicide, failing schools, crime.

"All of that gets put on the back burner during a state of crisis. The only way for us to move forward and get out of this is for individuals — the parents, the friends, the families, people who have been taken hold of by fear and have essentially become addicted to fear — start to acknowledge that they are hurting each other and themselves by holding onto the fear."

He explains that this is why he's writing a second book called Freedom from Fear: A 12 Step Guide to Individual and National Recovery, modeled after AA and Jordan B. Peterson's 12 Rules for Life. "We cannot look to the people at the top to correct themselves," he says. "We have to look to each other and build up from the bottom to get over this fear addiction, and hopefully block the next crisis from taking over our lives."

* Mikki Willis is an independent investigative filmmaker and author. His most recent production, Plandemic, received the European Independent Film Award for Best Documentary in 2021, and claims to now be acknowledged as among the first vehicles for warning the world of the agenda to reduce citizens' liberties through medical tyranny.

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