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The biggest contributing factor to this is the presumption among parents that think that since they send their children to public schools, that they will all get an equally good education that will adequately prepare them for life. If parents felt more responsible for ensuring the education of their children, education would improve. Reducing or eliminating publicly funded education (except for those who truly need it) would force parents to get involved.
It has never been the objective of American public education to give "common" children the kind of education that can be had for a price by the priveleged. Public schools and universal education were created to manufacture good little boys and girls who would obediently and unquestioningly take their place on the assembly line, with enough of the 3-Rs to be able to understand the flow chart. In that sense, public education is achieving its goal admirably.
The only way you can "force" parents to get involved is to take their earnings from them on tax day and use it to create a mandatory universal system in which they have no alternative but to get involved. The ultimate failure of a "free society" is that people remain free to NOT get involved, which is exactly what most will do when they are free to choose between getting involved and buying the latest iDevice. How do you "force" free people to get involved?
I see that many of the responders to The History Forum are the ones who are constantly searching for a platform on which to copy-and-paste their favorite abolish-the-government talking points.
I see that many of the responders to The History Forum are the ones who are constantly searching for a platform on which to copy-and-paste their favorite abolish-the-government talking points.
You think? lol
Quote:
Originally Posted by Walter Greenspan
By sharply reducing, if not eliminating, the nanny state and thereby encouraging personal responsibility.
Name me one first or even second world country that does not embrace the concept of universal education for children as being one of the pillars of society and the responsibility of the collective.
What's broken in American education is not the fact that we do it publicly through the government. What's broken is our concept of what that education should be, in particular our desire to teach to the lowest common denominator and consider everyone "equal" in a realm where differences are generally very glaring.
We need to be willing as a society to abandon the idea that all succesful primary education ends at a college and invest more time and resources in educating and challenging our best and brightest then we do educating our worst and dumbest.
By sharply reducing, if not eliminating, the nanny state and thereby encouraging personal responsibility.
As I pointed out in my post, the purpose for the establishment of nanny-state public education was to "force" everyone to be personally responsible, all uniformly following your flow chart of personal responsibility. Get up in the morning, commute to a mindless job making money for the man, do what you're told, shut up, wave the flag, take your paycheck and buy what is advertised on TV. You know, Personal Responsibility.
How, exactly, do you propose to "encourage" any social compliance, without putting children in a nanny-state school to brainwash them and "force" them to know what Personal Responsibility is? So far, the only substitute being offered is to "force" children all listen to daytime AM radio.
We need to be willing as a society to abandon the idea that all succesful primary education ends at a college and invest more time and resources in educating and challenging our best and brightest then we do educating our worst and dumbest.
Do you have any other sources you refer to, or do you just read "The Free Man Online"?
What they are talking about in the article was not what I was talking about. I was referring to the current idea that K-12 education is only succesful if it results in the student being accepted into and attending a 2/4-year college/university. We offer only one means with which to achieve educational "success" and teach all to follow that path, despite the fact that it is not for everyone and tends to be a waste of time and money for many. Take for example the fact that a BA is now required for the most menial entry-level jobs at most employers. Does a person really need 4-years of university education to work in a call center or hack spreadsheets?
As far as what the article is talking about, I would agree with a lot of the points they were making about what is being taught. We have abandoned the classical education model wholesale because it takes effort and everyone isn't cut out for it, despite the fact it creates extremely well rounded and literate individuals. A "liberal arts" education used to be heavily rooted in classical education, but has now just become a hodge-podge of crap except at the more elite colleges and universities.
I will never share your opinion that the government should get out of education all together and leave it to individuals. However, I will agree that how and what we are teaching needs to change. If you have anything to add besides one sentence blurbs backed up with links to your favorite website, I'd love to hear it.
If you have anything to add besides one sentence blurbs backed up with links to your favorite website, I'd love to hear it.
Here you go:
The Conspiracy of Ignorance: The Failure of American Public Schools by Martin Gross. (ISBN: 0060932600 Publisher: HarperCollins)
Synopses & Reviews
Publisher Comments:
Never before have public school students been so poorly educated. On national exams, almost 40 percent of fourth graders are reading at "below basic" levels, and in international contests in math and science, our seventeen-year-olds score near the bottom.
In a shocking expose of the Educational Establishment, Martin L. Gross describes how the typical teacher is academically inferior and trained in dubious "educational psychology" and faddish "whole language" methods. Indeed, most teachers and administrators come from the bottom third of their class and are outscored on the SAT tests by their own college-bound students. The curriculum is so weak that only one in five students ever take trigonometry, physics, or geography in high school. The usual remedies-from smaller class sizes to federal aid-fail because the Etablishment is intent on maintaining both control and lower academic standards. Lucid, persuasive, and meticulously researched, The Conspiracy of Ignorance asks- and answers--the questions educators are afraid to ask. This book is desperately needed if American schoolchildren are to prosper in today's competitive world.
The Conspiracy of Ignorance: The Failure of American Public Schools by Martin Gross. (ISBN: 0060932600 Publisher: HarperCollins)
Synopses & Reviews
Publisher Comments:
Never before have public school students been so poorly educated. On national exams, almost 40 percent of fourth graders are reading at "below basic" levels, and in international contests in math and science, our seventeen-year-olds score near the bottom.
In a shocking expose of the Educational Establishment, Martin L. Gross describes how the typical teacher is academically inferior and trained in dubious "educational psychology" and faddish "whole language" methods. Indeed, most teachers and administrators come from the bottom third of their class and are outscored on the SAT tests by their own college-bound students. The curriculum is so weak that only one in five students ever take trigonometry, physics, or geography in high school. The usual remedies-from smaller class sizes to federal aid-fail because the Etablishment is intent on maintaining both control and lower academic standards. Lucid, persuasive, and meticulously researched, The Conspiracy of Ignorance asks- and answers--the questions educators are afraid to ask. This book is desperately needed if American schoolchildren are to prosper in today's competitive world.
Nice selection, but your posts in this thread are still absent independent thought and your own ideas. How about telling us what you think?
In response to what the book is talking about, this is attacking the issue from the wrong direction. It's not anything within the current system that is flawed. It's the system itself and the philosophy that governs it.
From the first paragraph regarding test scores...
The fact that we are measuring all children to an equal standard is the beginning of the flaws in our educational logic. A well done test setting the bar at average should show that 40% or so of students are below average. The issue isn't making all kids score well on the test, it's taking each group and teaching them to their level/ability.
The section on where our 17 year olds rank is also important. The US test scores are based on collective scoring across a wide body of students at typical American High Schools. The foreign tests are administered at their highest level institutions like the Gymansiums in Germany or the current world darling the Chinese schools in Shanghai province where they tested only at their elite schools. We are comparing our average to the worlds best, because we teach everyone like they are average. This isn't a failure of anything but our general educational philosophy.
In the next section it mentions things like trigonometry, physics and geogrpahy and laments that we only teach one in five students these subjects. I ask, what's wrong with that? Does everyone need to have an advanced understanding of those subjects? The answer would be no, we need to teach them to the kids who need them and not waste time on the ones who don't.
We have created an educational system whose "establishment" is reactive to the pressure to make everyone perform to an equal level as measured on standardized testing. Further we have tied money to performance on these dubious tests. I have as healthy a skepticism of academia as anyone, but I also recognize that the flaws are with our philosophy not teachers.
That is the oft-cited plaint of the secular-progressive-liberal Kool-aid drinking Left, who more often than not, fall back on this shibboleth when replying to fact based argument because of their lack of any coherent factually-based arguments.
The sources and folks that I cite have expressed my thinking better than I could, and why re-invent the wheel?
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