Kerry McDonald

Kerry McDonald

Contributor

Kerry McDonald is a Senior Contributor for Intellectual Takeout. She has a B.A. in economics from Bowdoin College and a Master’s degree in education policy from Harvard University. Follow her on Twitter.

Recent blog posts by this author

Schools Banning Parents from Lunchtime Visits

In his classic 1991 essay in The Wall Street Journal, New York State Teacher of the Year, John Taylor Gatto, declared: “Government schooling is the most radical adventure in history. It kills the family by monopolizing the best times of childhood...

Harvard Study Shows the Dangers of Early School Enrollment

Every parent knows the difference a year makes in the development and maturity of a young child. A one-year-old is barely walking while a two-year-old gleefully sprints away from you. A four-year-old is always moving, always imagining, always asking...

States Allowing This Practice Have Fewer Teen Suicides

Freedom is the precursor to happiness. When we’re free, we feel in control of our lives and able to direct our own path. If we’re unhappy, we can make changes and make different choices. If we are not free, we cannot make these choices. We cannot be...

D.C. Bureaucrats Are Trying to Make Parents Get a License to Let Children Play Together

Let’s say you and some of your friends decide to gather your young children together a couple of days a week for a few hours of free play. Maybe you switch off who leads the gaggle of kids each week, allowing for some shared free time and...

Compulsory Schooling Laws: What if We Didn't Have Them?

We should always be leery of laws passed “for our own good,” as if the state knows better. The history of compulsory schooling statutes is rife with paternalism, triggered by anti-immigrant sentiments in the mid-nineteenth century and fueled by a...

Schools Are Tracking Your Child’s Mental Health—Whether You Like It or Not

A worrying trend is emerging in schools across the country. With increasing regularity, school districts are tracking students’ mental health and raising flags if a screening shows something amiss. Student mental health tracking is...

Survey Reveals Double Standard on Raising Taxes for Public Higher Ed

We’ve all been there. You answer that unknown number on your phone and the caller asks, “Do you want to help save the sea turtles?” Yes! Or you’re walking in the city square and smiley people with clipboards and colorful shirts ask if you want to...

Stop Criminalizing Parenthood

When I was young, I had a paper route. It was actually my big brother’s but he subcontracted to me part of the route closest to our house and gave me the appropriate portion of his earnings. I had about three streets I was responsible for and...

Pediatricians Are Now Writing ‘Play Prescriptions’

Kids need to play. It seems like an obvious statement, as central to childhood as eating peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches and chasing fireflies. For generations, parents have known that a play-filled childhood is essential for healthy physical and...

Should Parents Have the Right to Choose a Safe School?

As back-to-school time approaches, parents are bracing for school-related trauma. The threat of bullying, violence, school shootings, and mental health maladies looms large as a new school year emerges. A 2018 PDK poll found that one-third...