> [...] but I wonder what has kept it all so fringe?
A lot of people are employed by the school system. Like the other guilds, teacher training probably has a lot of inertia and indoctrination. Teaching instructors teach student teachers how they managed their classrooms, not realizing that the actual "traditional" approach to education in America was the one-room schoolhouse.
> Does anyone have insights into Gatto's credibility?
John Gatto was most active in the 90's and 2000's (Wikipedia says Gatto had two strokes in 2011). He seemed to start his protest against school in the latter years of John Holt's rebellion:
A lot of people are employed by the school system. Like the other guilds, teacher training probably has a lot of inertia and indoctrination. Teaching instructors teach student teachers how they managed their classrooms, not realizing that the actual "traditional" approach to education in America was the one-room schoolhouse.
> Does anyone have insights into Gatto's credibility?
John Gatto was most active in the 90's and 2000's (Wikipedia says Gatto had two strokes in 2011). He seemed to start his protest against school in the latter years of John Holt's rebellion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Holt_(educator)
https://web.archive.org/web/20050206095110/http://www.holtgw...