ichMael; I'll say it again; Gatto is not credible by any acceptable academic standard, his 'research' sucks. On almost everything he is just plain wrong, according to reliable evidence. I guess you know a messiah when you see one eh? Followed a few?
As to people who worked in the Reagan administration, can I recomment Jim Wallis's excellent book 'Rediscovering Values'? This points out quite succinctly where the roots of the decline in the values and international reputation of the USA lie. Neither Bush nor Shrub, but good ol' Ronnie all the way. Don't get me wrong, I'm not an 'America basher' like some on this side of the pond; I see (and have always seen) the USA as potentially the greatest force for good the world has ever seen; it's just that your country (and mine to some extent) has fallen into the hands of powerful and amoral people, who run the place merely as a vehicle for their own enrichment on the backs of others, and this was Reagan's doing. Less regulation is one of their tools; without regulation there are no checks on those with enough money to buy influence. Gatto's ideas play into this trap, and if carried to their logical conclusion would lead to an enormous underclass of allegedly home educated children who in fact receive no education at all, with no means left to change this. As I posted before, I've read Gatto, and run down his sources. You might want to check out some of the organisations who fund his shoddy attempts at research as well.