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[lifefeedsonlife]

So - the question is: Is education the province of the State? Some would argue yes. So the next question becomes: Is successful education the province os the State? Well - that depends on what you define as success and education.

Therein lay the premise of society. The history of American education through compulsory laws and prescribed curriculum is one of ultimate failure. The system has begun imploding on itself. What started out as a dream of the wHOLlY committed is starting to be revealed for what it is - which is a failing experiment in social engineering.

Is life a regimented thing? Then why is school?

What our species is - and what 'they' wanted it to become are two separate things. When we fly in the face of our own biology . . . our biology is still going to come out on top.

We've chosen to home school our kids (and it IS a full-time job) because we love them and want to afford them a WIDER array of experiences and educational opportunities than State prescribed education can do. Pooling resources is a good idea as long as the intent doesn't become collectivization. There are a LOT of online resources and people sharing curriculum - it's cool.
 
Learning is NOT limited to 8am - 3pm with set breaks in between classes and level by level curriculum. (I remember a teacher saying: 'We have to end this interesting and enlightening conversation because the bell rang.') One size does NOT fit all . . . and - well, my kids are probably the best behaved, polite ones you'll see in a restaurant too . . . .

I swear - this book I'm readin' is the equivalent of Morpheus red pill.

[Amidala]

I just do not see education as a failure.  Look around you - everything we have that is man-made - cars, bikes, medicine, houses, skyscrapers, roads, maintenance, dishwashers, laundry soap, COMPUTERS, books, - the list is infinite - is a result of education. People have to be educated to do research, to be creative, to invent things. Most of the major advances have been done in our lifetime, the past century, more specifically the past 60 years. Think of the things we have that didn't exist in our childhood.  Think of technically advanced fabrics to keep warm and to climb Mt Everest (which I think is a stupid idea). Think of all the satellite technology we use on a daily basis and don't even realize it.

Everyone who does these things had an education and my guess is that most of them had a public school education and certainly were successful in college and beyond.  plus, the level of graduate and post-graduate education needed to learn engineering and medicine is regimented largely because the knowledge builds on itself. (you can really learn differential equations without know arithmetic, algebra and calculus first...)  Just sitting here in my kitchen, looking around at all of the good things I have rather than sitting in a mud hut or wooden shack, gives me pause and thankful that people in past generations worked hard, learned and were creative. AND mostly thankful that God has made the way for the expression of creativity and knowledge!!

[Amidala]

And some believe that public education was a result of the Great Awakening in the 19th century, motivated by a love of God, not some social experiment.  Heard a sermon about this on Nancy Leigh DeMoss' radio program recently.

[Lifetime]

I truly believe we lost the best when we allowed the Feds to take the control of the Education system away from the States in the Carter Administration. I am a product of the Education system prior and from the ledge I am standing on, my Gen didn't do too bad and most of what we have today.... offshoots from ideas already there when the states had the control.... to include Everything involved in what is happening today. A lot of what we do in science today is from prior thought and experiment... to include that which some think is sacrilege... cloning, Bio experimentation. We weren't perfect but what we knew and thought of as something NOT to do...has now been allowed free rein. Even the music comes back around to the "older" Gen.... I admit there is a lot of good... vaccines, construction, fabrication, all improved but started in the pencil/paper existence of our lineage. Now I see where you will need a degree to check the temp of fries.... or work the electronic dept. at Wally World. Common sense is not even in the equations.... How many people lost their jobs in the Auto Industry, Construction who had degrees??? Hell, I worked with people who had Masters and all that was required to work there was common sense. We even had people with no High School Dip. I take my car to a Shade Tree Mechanic who never finished HS but knows as much about cars as those in shops in the area... Life is hard enough already without knowing you have a huge bill waiting for you when you leave school and looking for the elusive job. It was stated that the benefit of a college/technical bill doesn't even start to pay back until the early 30's and that is if you can find work after the school. School scores have not really risen enough to justify the money we have thrown into the Ed system since 1980. Money doesn't make Education better following that. I would put a 1950/60's HS Education against any 2 and some 4 year degree anytime. Now all that money and we can't even produce an appreciable amount of HS Students who read at a 7th grade level and THEY are headed to COLLEGE??    IMHO

[CindyLouWho]

A public school education is just ok.  Mediocre at best compared to what I am seeing in the private sector.  My oldest had a total public school education.  She was capable of so much more and I wish I had wised up earlier.  My middle one went through 8th grade.  (jr high was a disaster) and the youngest went through 6th grade.  I have hashed my issues out here before.  The high school does not have time for my concerns nor do they care that a child needs more.  Fine.  I took it upon myself.  Which was ok with us.  But No Child Left Behind   has been a thorn in my side.  My daughters 6th grade teacher flat out told me that they have marks they have to meet and giving her a zero for uncompleted work does not help her meet that mark.  There are kids who can not do the work as well as she can and she has to give her a chance to make up the work to keep her overall success rate where she is told it needs to be.  So my daughter learns that is no big deal to be given an assignment with a time limit and not do it as told....she can pretty much do it whenever she wants cause the teacher needs to keep her success rate up.   So because the teacher knows what she is capable of, she gives her all freakin' week to get it handed in because the few kids who are not capable of completing it correctly are already dragging her rate down.  I told her if my daughter does not complete her homework to give her a zero.  I demanded it.  She didn't want to hear me.  I had to go to the principal - who at least understood and agreed - but after all was said and done, did not enforce it.....said child was allowed to slack off after a couple months.  If my daughter were held to the rules in the first place she would soon learn that bad work/no work = bad grades and no fun.  That there are consequences.   The bullying that goes on in the schools (zero tolerance my ass!!!!)  is ridiculous.  My youngest also doled out her fair share and that is something else I will NOT put up with.  I have a full year of private school under my belt now and we are so happy with the differences.  So happy.  My son now knows what zero tolerance really means.  You will not do this or this will happen.  Period.  You can count on it.  It doesn't matter who you are or who your parents are.  And my youngest.....just a few weeks in and feeling like she really is part of the picture.   I know there are positive aspects to the public school system Ami, it's just that the bad really overshadow them too much of the time.....so much negativity.  In general, I have to say I was fairly pleased with the elementary education......the teachers don't seem so burned out maybe? and always took the time to listen and give input.  The high school on the other hand.........

[CindyLouWho]

I have a lot of admiration for homeschooling parents.  It really is the way to go nowadays. 

[lifefeedsonlife]

Education is necessary.

Public Education as administered by bureaucrats with good intentions but bad ideas is not.

The Great Awakening of the 19th century led to much benevolent tyranny. (Those were the folks who thought prohibition was a good idea. Dyed in the wool true believers want human nature to BE something other than what it is.) Good intentions don't excuse bad practice. The idea behind compulsory public education was to create a workforce of pliable individuals who would be ideal for the workplaces of the day. It has grown in scope and power from the seeds of that idea.

Thomas Edison was described by his enlightened school masters as dull . . . so what did he do?

Edison entered school in Port Huron, but his teachers considered him to be a dull student. Because of hearing problems, Edison had difficulty following the lessons and his school attendance became sporadic. Nevertheless, Edison became a voracious reader and at age 10, he set up a laboratory in his basement.

When his mother could not longer stand the smell of his chemistry lab, Edison took a job as a trainboy on the Grand Trunk Railway and established a new lab in an empty freight car. He was 12 at the time. Edison also began printing a weekly newspaper, which he called the Grand Trunk Herald.

source: http://www.incwell.com/Biographies/Edison.html

I suppose one could argue the ADA would've fixed that - but it probably would have stifled his spark too. Why did he have the laboratory? So he could experiment and put to use a practical application of what he learned in books. Not every kid is going to be a Thomas Edison - but I'd rather see Self-Determination decide that as opposed to someone with the correct letters after their name encouraging or not encouraging based on their prescribed perceptions of an individual.

Some parents aren't good parents - many parents are good parents - and some are great parents. The system has inadvertently taught parents to abbrogate their responsibility for their children's education and give it over to the system. then the system reacts by saying that parents aren't interested and if we don't do it - then who will?

Compulsory public education was born from the idea that the STATE can do a better job educating children than individual parents can. It is a 'collective' thought. No Child Left Behind is a collective thought. Think about it - if one child is left behind - then all children are left behind. (If one of us suffers we ALL suffer is the underlying principle.) I do not buy that philosphy. 
 
I think the Progressive movement is full of well meaning folks with some silly ideas. Even William James loathed Chatauqua . . . which I find interesting . . . .

[gore range]

....pubic school does covers a lot of territory-

[CindyLouWho]

No Child Left Behind is a collective thought. Think about it - if one child is left behind - then all children are left behind. (If one of us suffers we ALL suffer is the underlying principle.) I do not buy that philosphy. 

Thank you for shortening my thought process.  I'm no good at simplifying, lol.

[lifefeedsonlife]

The "problem" lay somewhere. I'm pretty positive it lays where I think it does. The literacy rate in the U.S. in the early 1800's (before the 'enlightenment') was near 98% - and the books written during that time (i.e. the Last of The Mohicans) are intricate and demanded some thought be put into them. Shakespeare was understood by children 8 and 9 years old.

And why do we as a species reach sexual maturity at around age 13 (and now younger), yet marriage consent was pushed back to age 18 . . . ? Why did the age of majority used to be 21 in Pennsylvania until 1991 when it changed to age 18? There's an answer to those questions - an answer considered benevolent and enlightened. How old was Edison when he got his first job? How about George Washington? Ben Franklin? And how did they learn at that age? And why is the standard different now? (Why is Disney changing the ending to classic stories that often end in infortunate circumstances?)

Society has changed in 160 years - and flies in the face of who we are.

[lifefeedsonlife]

From the Gatto Book:

In 1839, thirteen years before the first successful school compulsion law was passed in the United States, a perpetual critic of Boston Whig (Mann’s own party) leadership charged that pro-posals to erect German-style teacher seminaries in this country were a thinly disguised attack on local and popular autonomy. The critic Brownson2 allowed that state regulation of teaching licenses was a necessary preliminary only if school were intended to serve as a psychological control mechanism for the state and as a screen for a controlled economy. If that was the game truly afoot, said Brownson, it should be reckoned an act of treason.

"Where the whole tendency of education is to create obedience," Brownson said, "all teachers must be pliant tools of government. Such a system of education is not inconsistent with the theory of Prussian society but the thing is wholly inadmissible here." He further argued that "according to our theory the people are wiser than the government. Here the people do not look to the government for light, for instruction, but the government looks to the people. The people give law to the government." He concluded that "to entrust government with the power of determining education which our children shall receive is entrusting our servant with the power of the master. The fundamental difference between the United States and Prussia has been overlooked by the board of education and its supporters."3

And later in this chapter:
 

One result passed over too quickly in historical accounts of school beginnings is the provision for a quasi-military noncommissioned officer corps of teachers, and a staff-grade corps of administrators to oversee the mobilized children. One consequence unexpected by middle classes (though perhaps not so unexpected to intellectual elites) was a striking increase in gullibility among well-schooled masses. Jacques Ellul is the most compelling analyst of this awful phenomenon, in his canonical essay Propaganda. He fingers schooling as an unparalleled propaganda instrument; if a schoolbook prints it and a teacher affirms it, who is so bold as to demur?

[lifefeedsonlife]

Later in the Chapter:

Administrative utopias are a peculiar kind of dreaming by those in power, driven by an urge to arrange the lives of others, organizing them for production, combat, or detention. The operating principles of administrative utopia are hierarchy, discipline, regimentation, strict order, rational planning, a geometrical environment, a production line, a cellblock, and a form of welfarism. Government schools and some private schools pass such parameters with flying colors. In one sense, administrative utopias are laboratories for exploring the technology of subjection and as such belong to a precise subdivision of pornographic art: total surveillance and total control of the helpless. The aim and mode of administrative utopia is to bestow order and assistance on an unwilling population: to provide its clothing and food. To schedule it. In a masterpiece of cosmic misjudgment, the phrenologist George Combe wrote Horace Mann on November 14, 1843:

"The Prussian and Saxon governments by means of their schools and their just laws and rational public administration are doing a good deal to bring their people into a rational and moral condition. It is pretty obvious to thinking men that a few years more of this cultivation will lead to the development of free institutions in Germany."

[Zipper]

 
Click the photo for the story.

[Puffin]

When my kids were in school I never considered how bad the children of others were doing. Our attention and focus was only directed toward out kids performance.
That meant homework with Mom & Dad every nite. Family discussions on sujects taken and why, and of course performance expectations.
So I believe any successfull student has to have a large homeschool component regardless to whether they are homeschooled full time or go to public schools.
Homeschooling clearly has an advantage in that it's 1 on 1, or slightly more in CLW's example. Public cannot give that level of attention, but the difference can be made up with parent involvment I believe.
I also admit I don't know any specifics of homeschooling, and finding data that is not from the homeschool industry is difficult. Is there a failure rate buried somewhere?
I also know that the colleges,universities and grad schools are full, and that SAT/ACT scores needed to get in good schools are way high compared to my student days.
 
thats a disconnect to me.
 
 

[Puffin]

The literacy rate in the U.S. in the early 1800's (before the 'enlightenment') was near 98% -

this is what I mean about information disconnects!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_rate
Who was figuring the lit rate back then? WHo does it now?
How to reconcile?