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| -Signs, Portents, and the Weather- |
| School's Out Forever? |
| 2020-03-30 |
| [American Greatness] Homeschooling certainly has its challenges, especially when foisted on families with little or no warning. But many families may find that its benefits outweigh the costs in this time of virus induced homeschooling. Expect the number of permanent homeschoolers to rise as a result. With just about every public school in the country closed at this time, the only way for kids to get an education is at home. Many see this as nothing less than tragic. Writing in Education Week, Stephen Sawchuk claims that schools are an "absolute necessity for the functioning of civic culture, and even more fundamentally than that, daily life." If Sawchuk is correct, the country’s troubles extend way beyond the Wuhan virus. While shutting down public schools is certainly a massive disruption, our civic culture was just fine before the government’s monopoly on education came to be. The push for the government’s role in education began in the 1830s when a group of dedicated reformers declared that state involvement was needed to ensure all children get a better, more unified education. Leading the charge was Bostonian Horace Mann who, with like-minded souls, campaigned for a greater state role in education. They argued that a centrally planned system of tax-funded schools would be superior to the independent and home schools that existed at the time. As the late Cato Institute scholar Andrew Coulson noted, "Shifting the reins of educational power from private to public hands would, they promised, yield better teaching methods and materials, greater efficiency, superior service to the poor, and a stronger, more cohesive nation. Mann even ventured to predict that if public schooling were widely adopted and given enough time to work, ’nine-tenths of the crimes in the penal code would become obsolete,’ and ’the long catalogue of human ills would be abridged.’" (Emphasis added.) While Mann’s utopian goals obviously didn’t quite work out as planned, they did create a link in people’s minds between the "institution of public schooling and the ideals of public education" that tragically still exists. A look at literacy rates is instructive. In 1840, before compulsory public schools existed, literacy rates were about 90 percent. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #17 Education has always fallen short in one key area, how to run a small business. That is why 9 out of 10 fail. |
| Posted by: Dr. Wheat Faartz007 2020-03-30 18:09 |
| #16 #12 But, but, but what will the bloated administrative staff and assistance superintendents for women's athletics and WOKE studies do for a living now ? They'll be authorized to barge in anyone's homes at anytime because "child welfare". They'll even be allowed to bunk with the kids if they're so inclined. And Karen will be fine with it, so long as there no mean tweets involved. |
| Posted by: charger 2020-03-30 16:26 |
| #15 That's why trade courses pretty much dwindled while the complex churned out teachers to feed their existence with more fodder Heard a 'new' school administrator (she'd been a teacher prior) that got up in a meeting and asked why the local high schools were teaching Welding. Her exact words were "Nobody does that anymore." Hilarity did NOT ensue as I noticed some others nodding their heads. I did respond and offer the names of several local businesses that employed welders and what a certified welder typically made hourly. There were several shocked faces as they reflected on their misspent education. |
| Posted by: Mullah Richard 2020-03-30 16:22 |
| #14 Our educational system was copied from the Prussian Model that had an objective of churning out productive "Citizen Workers for the Central State". And our current system was geared to provide workers "Just educated enough to work on an assembly line..." Bingo. Noted like lack of highly individualistic polymath geniuses in the last 150 or so years? The Trivium used to pop them out quite regularly. The Prussian Method? Not so much - a deliberate feature, not a bug. |
| Posted by: Secret Master 2020-03-30 15:23 |
| #13 practicing diversity in their little |
| Posted by: Frank G 2020-03-30 14:03 |
| #12 But, but, but what will the bloated administrative staff and assistance superintendents for women's athletics and WOKE studies do for a living now ? |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2020-03-30 13:33 |
| #11 ..except it has been twisted in the last couple of decades to turning out Student Loan signers to sustain the university and colleges complex. Keeps 'em in indentured servitude too. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2020-03-30 13:32 |
| #10 If you think I'm excited about my kids knowing calculus, getting stoked about social studies an history. I'm talking calligraphy unseen for 50 years. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2020-03-30 13:28 |
| #9 According to Jerry Pournelle, the principal reason for K-12 is to provide employment to teachers. Since his time things are changed in such a way that I feel compelled to modify teachers with "otherwise unemployable" |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2020-03-30 13:24 |
| #8 ..except it has been twisted in the last couple of decades to turning out Student Loan signers to sustain the university and colleges complex. That's why trade courses pretty much dwindled while the complex churned out teachers to feed their existence with more fodder. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2020-03-30 11:57 |
| #7 Why do we have "Kindergarden", eh? As my older sister (Education PhD and a wide career from private religious to college with a brief stop teaching at a US base in Okinawa...) told me: Our educational system was copied from the Prussian Model that had an objective of churning out productive "Citizen Workers for the Central State". And our current system was geared to provide workers "Just educated enough to work on an assembly line..." |
| Posted by: magpie 2020-03-30 10:42 |
| #6 /\ Excellent suggestions. I will forward them to the Deep State Gosplan (central planning committee) within the hour. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2020-03-30 10:36 |
| #5 No, #4, calendar needs to be modified so the students can be sent to plant and pick the crops. Or maybe detentions and suspensions would be accrued and served then. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2020-03-30 10:32 |
| #4 Centrally planned, consolitated FEMA campuses are the key. Trains can take the students there in the Fall and bring them home in the Spring. A short 5-7 week visit with parents or authorized guardians should limit exposure and contamination. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2020-03-30 08:48 |
| #3 It the teenager creche enables both parents to work which suits the establishment just fine, ok there are some costs in terms of damaged families but the establishment dont feel those.. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2020-03-30 08:40 |
| #2 state involvement was needed to ensure all children get a better, more unified education. And there you have the prime reason. Unified. Better serfs through chemistry. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2020-03-30 08:14 |
| #1 How fortunate we are to have New England to instruct and guide us. You couldn't find a literacy rate of 90% in virtually any inner city public school. Thanks, Horace. |
| Posted by: Cesare 2020-03-30 07:51 |