Q & A III

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ARGUMENTS FOR/AGAINST PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Dropping Out

I know exactly what I'm talking about. Your explanations show you to be an apologist from among the the socialists who run the schools.

Corpus Christi Texas provides the backdrop for our discussion. Another writer was complaing that his schools did not have "enough" money to deal with a driop out rate of 35%. I responded:

: "Dropout rates" are the only way we really have to see how a
: school system is meeting the needs of the customers
: (students and parents).  If a shoe store had a 35% "dropout
: rate", it would go out of business.  Your system is really
: broken, but no more than many others in the country.  

!!Dropout rates are less of a learning indicator than it is a socio-economic and family indicator. Some kids don't come to school no matter what you do. I know, because I do everything I can imagine, daily.

Schools hamper curiosity

!!Schools could lower standards, and make it more "fun" to be in school, but would that help? Sure there would be less drop outs and more graduates. However, the news would be reporting different stats, like the number of graduates that are able to communicate and compute.

If the government were providing something in the schools the children value, there would be no reason to force them to come. The very existance of compulsory attendance laws proves that government is no better at providing education than it is at delivering the mail.

Children don't automatically seek ease. They want a challenge, and their lives are focused on learning. Watch a toddler, or a child who has freedom to explore his world. These kids are not seeking security, but are constantly going to the edge. They want to make sense out of their environment.

Contrast that with a child in a classroom. He is seldom excited, often sullen and usually bored. Is he really learning? I doubt it.

Public Education's Enormous Budget

: >inadequate funding to 
 
: This is a joke, right?  Annually in America, we spend over
: $300,000,000,000 (three hundred BILLION dollars) of taxpayer
: money on K-12 "education".  With less than fifty million kids in
: these institutions that means that we are spending over
: $6,000 per child.  Perennially pleading "underfunded" is a
: way the establishment (as in "Congress shall make no law
: respecting an establishment of religion") keeps thumping on
: taxpayers to ante-up more and more money, even though the
: results are uniformly awful.  Your letter gives the grim
: statistics.  

!!$6000 may seem like a lot of money to you but it isn't. Factor in teacher salaries, administrator salaries, building maintenance staff, insurance, sports programs, equipment, ... and the sum is less impressive.

Explain why a Catholic school does a measurable better job of educating even difficult students at one quarter to one-third the cost. They have all the same expenses as a government school, but only charge a fraction of the cost, and even if you factor in voluntary charity for tuition, the total outlay per pupil is still far less than half for a poorer product from the socialistic schools run by the government and funded by the extortion of taxes.

Smaller Classes

: *(1) keep class sizes down, 
 
: There is no evidence that smaller classes are more
: beneficial to children trying to learn.  But, if this is a
: priority with you for your children, homeschool them.  The
: class size is really optimal then.  

!!Where the hell did you go to school and learn educational philosophy. No research? I suggest that you try looking a little harder. Why don't you visit schools with low class sizes, and schools with large class sizes and compare. Why don't you ask some teachers. Why don't you listen to your gut! Look!

There is no need for vulgarity. I read U.S. Department of the Census documents and literally thousand of pages of information from the 'Net. In Utah, for instance, the class size in their government schools is far higher than most other states, yet the students are better educated. Looking at Catholic schools again, the class size is no smaller than in Utah, yet they turn an even better product. I have taught in government schools, in small classes and large, in elementary, middle and high schools. I have compared: There is no real difference because of class size. I have asked teachers (who are biased since smaller classes mean less work for them), but even then I get honest appraisals from some who agree the size of the class is not the most determinant factor in quality learning. My gut has nothing to do with facts. I have looked. The facts are that teaching is easier, but learning is unaffected, in smaller classes.

School's Job to Civilize Children

: >(2) open school facilities after school hours to provide special programs, 
: >activities, and sports to keep youth off the streets during this peak 
: >crime period, 
 
: This is proof positive that schools have failed in their
: original goals.  Horace Mann proposed a system that would
: create civilized little kids who would grow up to be
: civilized adolescents, who would, in turn, become civilized
: adults.  It hasn't worked, and no amount of money can turn
: this zebra into a camel.  

!!I am sorry to mention this but you are out of touch. Maybe from your ivory tower or wherever you look, you can't see that kids commit crimes in the hours right after school. Look at the statistics. [Just recently these stats were used to attack curfew laws.] Have schools failed? I don't think so. Society is changing, as is the family, and schools must make adjustments. Schools can not replace the family, but they can assist.

True. I am not denying that there is crime, but I blame it on the schools for this reason: Schools, true to their original intent have succeeded in alienating children from their parents, but purposely do not replace a valid sets of values that would otherwise have come from home with anything at all (what ever feels good is right). It is not surprising that there is crime. The students have just put into practie exactly what they have learned in school.

: >(3) provide proper counseling to troubled students and their families, 

: Schools are the places that children learned to dispise
: their parents in the first place. How would counselling at
: school make any difference?

!!What? Children despise the fact that life is work, not their parents. How did you arrive at your conclusion? I can't even decode your meaning here, but you'll have to forgive me: I'm government-school educated.

Individualized coaches for public school students

: >(4) to provide mentors or tutors to help struggling students improve 
: >their studies and graduate,  

: A fool is someone who continues doing the same thing
: (schooling in this case) and expects a different outcome.  

!!I think that you are right that schools are doing the same things, in a sense, year after year. They try to make kids think and teach them skills. What else can schools do besides that? I hope that no one would think that going to school guarantees civil behavior and economic success. If it could make that claim, schools would provide parents with written statements.

As it is, schools have avoided providing either a certificate of true education (the kids can't even read their diplomas) or the education that would make such a certificate unnecessary. It is obvious to anyone that they are not producing a civil society. Given the studious avoidance of responsibility for doing what they claim to be doing in education, it is not surprising that they also avoid repsonsibility for doing this, either. Especially since they are actually doing neither.

Why Do We Think We Need Peer Interaction So Badly

!!The movement towards homeschooling is startling to the educational community. I personally am split regarding the issue. On one hand, it makes people become actively involved in education. It may also show that education is attainable to the searcher. It sparkes the seed of independance. On the other hand, it seperates children from their peers. In an age when people are being driven apart by technology [VCRs, computers for entertainment, ...], homeschooling may be another seperating force where gelling force is needed.

There are dozens of studies (I have copies of three in front of me right now) that show that homeschooled children are better socialized than their government-schooled peers, and that they are consistently better educated. They are more likely to speak up on issues, and, most importantly, do not rely on the opinions of other children for their values and norms. They are more able to form opinions based on fact rather than feelings, and show less racial, sexual and religous bias than pupils in government schools.

: >(5) enable the teaching of life skills, conflict resolution, anger
identification and control, and decision making.  Gang violence and crime is
exploding: 40 drive-by shootings in 1994, 460 in 1995.  

Schools Are Failures

: More evidence of a failed system.

!!More evidence of something failing, but schools? I don't see the cause and effect between the two. Society does seem to be troubled. Pointing fingers doesn't help. If we look to schools for education, crime prevention, daycare centers, clinics, ... sure schools will not be able to keep up with the increasing demands. Let us look at education as a responsibility issue and a family issue and your view may change a bit.

EXACTLY!!! Educating the young is the family's responsibility, not the state's. Everytime the government steps in to do what is the family's job, the family stops for two reasons: The work is hard, and if someone else is willing to do it, why bother? and the government extorts the resources the family needs to do its job. In other words, since any socialistic program takes twice (or more) as many resources to do a poorer job, the family simply can't afford to do it themselves anymore.

The World is the Classroom

!!How do you teach a kid the value of education when that kid will not come
to school?

You have an amazingly dim view of "education" if you assert that only school can provide one. Any sentient human being learns hundreds of times more living than he ever does in a classroom. Life is a laboratory. A classroom is sterile. Learning in such an environment only proves that kids are extraordinarily adaptable.

The model for the classroom is a factory, where one does boring things without complaining. The founders of the modern classroom were trying to create a complacent, uncomplaining, reliable workforce, or a similar soldiery. That is Germany's way, not ours, but it is becoming so because the government is hard at work forcing its children into that very mold.

Schools Job IS To BRAINWASH

: All that said, it is important to realize that the schools
: are not really broken, they ARE doing one thing they set out
: to do:  break the connections between parents and children. 

: They were started in the 1830~40s on the premise that Irish
: Catholic children and later "Mormon" children and children
: of a variety of other, non-mainstream religions could be
: "Americanized" (read "Protestantized") if they could be
: forced away from their parents and taught the "truth" in
: schools.  Undermining parents was, and has always been the
: reason that governments insist that their subjects go to
: school, early and often.  

: To save the children, to save families, to save parents, to
: save taxpayers, get the children out of government schools.
: There is no real alternative.  

!!You may be right when you write that children are being conditioned. It also is true that people need to take ownership of public educational institutions. I just think that an increase in participation would be a much better solution.

!!Look at private schools if public schools are the problem. What do public schools differently? I would argue that the difference isn't with the teachers, building facilities, or curricula. I bet the difference is with the families and socio-economics.

Again, EXACTLY. Those few famiies who still do their job, i.e., direct, and pay for their children's education are doing the job. When the government steps in the whole equation changes and it changes for the worse.

: If the state monopolizes the philosophy of its citizens, it is 
: not significant that it does so in the classroom rather than 
: in the chapel. (1996) Moi

!!Religious indoctrination has a bigger impact than educational indoctrination? I disagree; they are both equally disfavorable. Maybe the reversal of one may lead to a reversal of the other.

You misread me. I am saying precisely that. It does not matter that the government chooses to indoctrinate a child in school or in a church, the effect is the same. and that effect is bad. It is interesting to note that the last state to disestablish it church (Maryland, I think, but I am not sure right now) did so in 1832. Within ten years, the government had begun taking over education. They just can't keep their hands off of our minds, can they?

: To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of 
: opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical. 
: (1777) Thomas Jefferson

!!I must wholeheartdly agree with that statement!--minus the word sinful.

Sinful stays. Why do you disagree with that?

: Whenever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found 
: state education. It has been discovered that the best way to insure 
: implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery. 
: (1874) Benjamin Disraeli

Schools Condition You To Blindness To Tyranny

!!That's funny. I have found my own education to be enlightening and not tyranical. My teachers were not famous educators, nor were they non-traditional. The difference with many kids today and with me has probably a lot to do with a strong work-ethic and a decent family. My family is far from perfect--trust me--but as a family, we continue to value education!

Most people think their own education to be enlightening and non-tyranical. Read Huxley's _Brave_New_World_("I'm glad I am a beta child"). Your family is the reason you are as good as you are, but that doesn't mean you have escaped all the effects of government indoctrination.

Churches and schools are where we develop our philosophy. If the state wants to control our thoughts, it is not significant that it does so in the classroom rather than in the chapel.
(1996) Moi

To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
(1777) Thomas Jefferson

Whenever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery.
(1874) Benjamin Disraeli

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