Ben Sasse claims public schools were created to separate Catholic kids from parents, priests

Former U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, who recently revealed he is battling cancer, is warning that one of the central goals behind America's public school system was to separate Catholic children from the influence of their parents and priests.

"The spread and rise of American public schools in the factory model was overwhelmingly about separating Catholic kids from their parents and their parish," Sasse said Tuesday during an event with The Trinity Forum. "That’s what it was for."

Sasse announced in December that he had been diagnosed with metastatic Stage 4 pancreatic cancer and called it "a death sentence."

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He also talked about the importance of intentionality with family and work.

"And I think we now know that work and home being as separated as they've been has lots and lots of downsides and the digital economy for good and for ill, but ultimately among intentional parents and workers for good, being able to have more scheduled control and choice about when you bucketize family stuff and when you get your focused work done and what kind of work you can do alongside other people," Sasse said. 

He also reflected on the future of education, and suggested that the education structure currently in place might drastically change. 

"I think eventually the 40-hour a-week institutionalized factory model school will not be replaced with some new 40-hour thing," Sasse said. "It will be replaced by a 2-hour thing and a 10-hour thing and a 5-hour thing and a 15-hour thing and some digital this and a new community that, and better youth sports and different things are going to disrupt that factory model."

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"And when that comes, I think we're going to look back on this moment and wonder why we assumed that the passivity was possibly going to produce entrepreneurial self-motivated workers who could navigate the disrupted economy of the post-digital revolution," Sasse added. "And we're going to know that we did this for way way too long. And we should be encouraging more self-ownership, autodidacticism, and entrepreneurial disruption among 12-and 14-and 16-and 18-year-olds, and especially 14-and 16-and 18-year-old boys."

The former Nebraska senator served in the Senate from early 2015 through the beginning of 2023, then went on to serve as president of the University of Florida, resigning in 2024 after his wife's epilepsy diagnosis. 

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