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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: They don't need no public education...
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
The "state" education system is the creature of the electorate
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
Oh wait, you're serious? Well in that case:
I don't know what it's like where you live, but where I live, every school district has a school board. Most of these people are individuals who have, or have had, or expect to have, or have been, kids attending the schools overseen by those boards. Again, where I live, these folks are serving on these boards as volunteers; they don't get paid.
Moreover, these folks get elected into their board positions by those citizens of the local community who register and vote. Many of these people are also parents of local pupils, or have been local pupils, etc. etc.
And beyond that, the local community has a say over the school budget, the school plant(s), and (many) school policies.
A school district in my state (not in my city) several years ago successfully changed and/or banned several courses, policies, and textbooks after managing to get a majority of fundamentalist Christians elected to their school board. While I don't agree with the direction they took, it certainly showed that the parents in that community had local control of their schools.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
This idea scares me, of ending public education. I see us heading for a new Dark Ages, with knowledge kept only by the select few in power, and a huge caste of uneducated, oppressed workers supporting them.
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mere Nick:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
Back to the politician. He has a nice smile just like the rellies. But he is silly, very silly, except that apparently he has some power. That's dangerous, but many politicians are idiots in the real sense.
I would like to see if he has the competence to teach: poetry, algerbra, history, geotrig, evolutionary biology, and perhaps the most important thing that schools teach: how to be part of a larger social entity and to get along with peers. Utah appears to be a pretty weird place.
I pretty much agree with what is on his webpage. It seems that to sum it up he saying that learning is important, teachers and students deserve respect, and if you can't understand that, then, no, you don't have to be here.
When I think of mandatory showing up at school, I think of something else that used to be a mandatory show up thing, the military draft. What would happen to complete screw ups there?
Except that school is about the formation of children for life together, and helping them be part of a society. The military is about training people to follow orders, kill others to defend some political goal, and is not about being part of the community in any immediate sense.
That this politico's schools (and perhaps your's) are deficient in serving their purposes of knowledge and socialization may speak to specifics of poor educational funding and other lacks of support, but not about the merits of public education itself. Education, in the thought of your Benjamin Franklin, is what fits people for democracy. -- So perhaps eliminating it from being compulsory, might help the current neo-liberal direction of corporate enrichment and kleptocracy. Keep 'em stupid, at McJobs and Walzmart and supplied with electronic entertainment, corn syrup and salt.
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
I don't know what it's like where you live, but where I live, every school district has a school board. Most of these people are individuals who have, or have had, or expect to have, or have been, kids attending the schools overseen by those boards. Again, where I live, these folks are serving on these boards as volunteers; they don't get paid.
I think that local control of schools is much more common in New England than elsewhere.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
I don't know what it's like where you live
A quango reporting to the government sets the national curriculum and every school has to follow it. The electorate gets about as much say in the matter as a dead vole.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
I don't know what it's like where you live
A quango reporting to the government sets the national curriculum and every school has to follow it. The electorate gets about as much say in the matter as a dead vole.
Better move to New England, then. Our system's prolly why NE schools generally (I'm not factoring that town run by creationism-teaching fundies, who didn't last long anyway & got voted out next election) get high marks every few years by the people who measure these things.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
We generally hear that American education is deficient in geography, history other than their own country, and is lagging in math and science. I think the deficiencies in geography are probably due to the story virtually every Canadian can tell about Americans who've asked silly questions about snow, weather in general, and animals. The other alleged deficiencies are probably due to the wider span between worst and best education. Provincial governments set standards which schools must follow, i.e., provincial curriculum, even as the boards try to attend to some local concerns.
I certainly shake my head in wonder with some of the anti-science ideas of alleged educated politicians, who probably had a better education than many of the general populace.
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
Well deficient as American education may be, it's only going to get worse if the guy has his way. ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
I don't actually see how American public education can be anything but deficient, given that it takes on all comers, including those who don't want to be there, those with little capacity to learn, those whose parents have persuaded them that, although they're required by law to attend, public school is really just a Satanic plot, etc. etc.
It beats the alternative, though.
In my brief foray into teaching at a junior college, I was pretty staggered by the sheer range of students. They were all fresh, um, persons, and all had graduated from some specie of US high school, with a couple of home-schoolers thrown in.
Some were bright, well-informed (for 18-y.o.), had a pretty good range of general knowledge, and could produce coherent written work. Others seemed utterly ignorant and functionally illiterate, and either didn't bother writing any papers (and flunked), or wrote so poorly I packed them off to the tutoring center (some of these flunked, too).
And that, alas, is the downside of local control.
As to history (touched on through the lens of American social movements), I saw no evidence that they were any less ignorant of US history than any other brand.
Our coursework didn't touch on geography, so who knows?
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
It beats the alternative, though.
Yes, dear Porridge, it does, and with that, come hope I think. You mention teaching. I have only supervised interns and tried to mentor new associates, it is so, so important, and yes, yes, does beat the alternative.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
And that, alas, is the downside of local control.
I don't think local control is all that much to blame - having taught the equivalent students in the UK, I also found a wide range - from the brilliant to those who were unable to construct a coherent, grammatically-correct sentence. These were all students from England and Wales, where a governmentally-imposed National Curriculum proscribes what is taught in the state schools (~93% of all pupils) and de facto what is examined in the national public exams (GCSE at 16, A-levels at 18). Those who preferred partying over working would do so whoever set the curriculum.
Of course, if the "Answers in Genesis" people took over your school board, they could eventually eliminate all trace of rational thought from the syllabus, but an established school system has a lot of inertia to overcome. Homeschools and other private schools are a much easier target for this kind of idiocy.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
And that, alas, is the downside of local control.
I don't think local control is all that much to blame - having taught the equivalent students in the UK, I also found a wide range - from the brilliant to those who were unable to construct a coherent, grammatically-correct sentence. These were all students from England and Wales, where a governmentally-imposed National Curriculum proscribes what is taught in the state schools (~93% of all pupils) and de facto what is examined in the national public exams (GCSE at 16, A-levels at 18). Those who preferred partying over working would do so whoever set the curriculum.
Of course, if the "Answers in Genesis" people took over your school board, they could eventually eliminate all trace of rational thought from the syllabus, but an established school system has a lot of inertia to overcome. Homeschools and other private schools are a much easier target for this kind of idiocy.
I think we're talking two different fish here. "Local control," which I've learned now to my sorrow doesn't apply everywhere in the US, is as much about money as it is about curriculum (and while one is being worked on, there is as yet no US "national curriculum," and I can guarantee there'll be a long hard political battle before we get one, if we ever do).
Where I live (New England), schools are funded either primarily by local property taxes, or they're funded (in my state) almost exclusively by local property taxes. Small towns with few residents and businesses either have correspondingly whoppingly high property taxes, or correspondingly few dollars to allocate to their schools. My state delivers almost no state aid to schools, and that aid primarily comes in the form of helping localities financially when putting up a bond for a new building.
In March, when Town Meeting is held, the populace votes on whether and/or how to spend money on its schools. Poor towns pay lower salaries, attract fewer teachers, and may attract teachers unable to get work elsewhere. Poor towns have older, shabbier plants, older (or no) equipment, older textbooks, larger class sizes, etc. etc. Despite the ancient cry that money has nothing to do with quality of education, I'm persuaded that factors like these do affect schooling. For one thing, they send the students a very explicit message: "We don't care enough about you and where you spend your days to ensure that you have teachers who know how to teach, working bathrooms, current textbooks, and a roof that doesn't drip on your head."
Of course, the town may in fact care a great deal about these things. But if they have no money, they can't express that care in observable,concrete ways.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Originally posted by Porridge:
quote:
Despite the ancient cry that money has nothing to do with quality of education,
it is difficult to credit that anyone with function beyond the brain stem actually believes this.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
John Knox argued for public education in 1560; "The children of the poor must be supported and sustained on the charge of the church, till trial is taken whether the spirit of docility is found in them or not. If they are found apt to letters and learning, then may they not be permitted to reject learning; but must be charged to continue their study, so that the commonwealth may have some comfort by them."
In other words, children, including poor children, were an asset of the nation, and must be educated to let the nation benefit from that asset.
That was the thinking behind the first couple of hundred years of provision of education in Scotland (the Education Act 1696 stipulated that there must be a school in every parish so that every child had access to a school; it didn't always work in practice, but the theory was sound).
Surely this is as true today as it was in 1560; children are our future, and educated children give society more confidence in the future than an under-class of uneducated children.
This included education up to and including University - "the great schools, called universities, shall be replenished with those that are apt to learning; for this must be carefully provided, that no father, of what estate or condition that ever he be, use his children at his own fantasy, especially in their youth; but all must be compelled to bring up their children in learning and virtue."
[ 21. July 2013, 14:34: Message edited by: North East Quine ]
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
Surely this is as true today as it was in 1560; children are our future, and educated children give society more confidence in the future than an under-class of uneducated children.
You think this. I think this. But every time the schools tax rate goes up around here, two plaints are sounded:
1. "I don't even have children (or "My children are grown"); I don't see why I should pay through the nose so somebody else's kids can have a computer (new textbooks, sports equipment, music instruction, etc.) in the classroom."
2. "Why are we paying teachers so much when they work only 9 months a year and get off at 3 in the afternoon to boot?"
There's absolutely zero understanding that the entire society benefits from an educated workforce, and zero understanding of the job of teaching (it takes no preparation whatsoever, obviously; anyone with a little patience and the ability to read can do it; papers mark themselves; teachers never have meetings to attend, etc. etc.).
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
John Knox argued for public education in 1560; "The children of the poor must be supported and sustained on the charge of the church, till trial is taken whether the spirit of docility is found in them or not. If they are found apt to letters and learning, then may they not be permitted to reject learning; but must be charged to continue their study, so that the commonwealth may have some comfort by them."
In other words, children, including poor children, were an asset of the nation, and must be educated to let the nation benefit from that asset.
Not all children, though - he's pretty clear that only those who "are found apt to letters and learning" should continue their study, and that universal education is only a good thing up to the point where those individuals can be identified.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Not all children, though - he's pretty clear that only those who "are found apt to letters and learning" should continue their study, and that universal education is only a good thing up to the point where those individuals can be identified.
Aye, there's the rub. Personally, I think everybody deserves a decent, real shot, maybe even 2-3 shots, at getting an education.
But once someone has demonstrated a decided lack of interest, or internal barriers we don't know how to fix (for example, cognitive deficits), or repeatedly gets in the way of other people's efforts to learn, then we need to acknowledge that something different is needed for these folks.
This is one of the most serious problems with No Child Left Behind: It assumes that every kid can acquire grade-level proficiency at every academic discipline. This just isn't true, and will never be true in a system which is required by law to school every child who comes through the door, regardless of any sensory, cognitive, neurological, physical, psychological, socioeconomic, and/or any other kind of barrier to learning.
I've told this story before, but placing a 20-year-old guy in a high school physics class, when he has not yet learned to respond to his own name, in the name of social inclusion is bull. His time is being wasted. Maybe he can learn to use the toilet independently; let's use his learning time for that. Maybe he can learn to cross the street; let's work on that. Maybe he can learn to do up his own buttons and zippers; let's go for that.
But let us, for the love of all that's good and holy, stop dragging him and many others like him, through pointless activities that serve no purpose but to "annoy the pig."
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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Lothiriel
Shipmate
# 15561
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Not all children, though - he's pretty clear that only those who "are found apt to letters and learning" should continue their study, and that universal education is only a good thing up to the point where those individuals can be identified.
Aye, there's the rub. Personally, I think everybody deserves a decent, real shot, maybe even 2-3 shots, at getting an education.
But once someone has demonstrated a decided lack of interest, or internal barriers we don't know how to fix (for example, cognitive deficits), or repeatedly gets in the way of other people's efforts to learn, then we need to acknowledge that something different is needed for these folks.
Or those who have non-academic aptitudes. Some kids who don't fit into the regular system want to learn, just not what is taught in the traditional classroom. Once they've got literacy and numeracy enough to function in the world (alas, that seems difficult enough to achieve these days), there should be choices. Rather than being utterly bored in a high school history class, some kids should be learning a trade.
For a while in Canada (60s-90s ish) schools were trying to prepare everyone for university and community college, and very few people went into trade apprenticeships. The folly of that became apparent when we had a glut of unemployed or underemployed university graduates and a serious shortage of skilled tradespeople. There's now a shift toward a better balance, but it's slow to emerge, and there's still something of a stigma attached to vocational and trade schools and programs.
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If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea. St-Exupery
my blog
Posts: 538 | From: Toronto, Canada | Registered: Mar 2010
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Mere Nick
Shipmate
# 11827
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
That this politico's schools (and perhaps your's) are deficient in serving their purposes of knowledge and socialization may speak to specifics of poor educational funding and other lacks of support, but not about the merits of public education itself.
You don't know if they're deficient.
quote:
Education, in the thought of your Benjamin Franklin, is what fits people for democracy. -- So perhaps eliminating it from being compulsory, might help the current neo-liberal direction of corporate enrichment and kleptocracy. Keep 'em stupid, at McJobs and Walzmart and supplied with electronic entertainment, corn syrup and salt.
However, there's no such thing as compulsory education. At most, you might get compulsory showing up on a somewhat regular basis.
[ 23. July 2013, 16:55: Message edited by: Mere Nick ]
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"Well that's it, boys. I've been redeemed. The preacher's done warshed away all my sins and transgressions. It's the straight and narrow from here on out, and heaven everlasting's my reward."
Delmar O'Donnell
Posts: 2797 | From: West Carolina | Registered: Sep 2006
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
John Knox argued for public education in 1560; "The children of the poor must be supported and sustained on the charge of the church, till trial is taken whether the spirit of docility is found in them or not. If they are found apt to letters and learning, then may they not be permitted to reject learning; but must be charged to continue their study, so that the commonwealth may have some comfort by them."
In other words, children, including poor children, were an asset of the nation, and must be educated to let the nation benefit from that asset.
Not all children, though - he's pretty clear that only those who "are found apt to letters and learning" should continue their study, and that universal education is only a good thing up to the point where those individuals can be identified.
Yes, only those found "apt to learning" were to continue beyond basic reading, but still, every child should be given the opportunity to attend school and receive some education.
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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scuffleball
Shipmate
# 16480
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Originally posted by Porridge:
quote:
Despite the ancient cry that money has nothing to do with quality of education,
it is difficult to credit that anyone with function beyond the brain stem actually believes this.
It cannot be assumed to be a direct correlation, no. There were some terrible independent schools in the city in which I grew up, as well as far better state schools. Also, how are you measuring quality? "Value Added"? A-level results? Oxbridge entry? All this ignores the pastoral dimension. A lot of schools, state and private alike, gain a reputation for "quality" essentially through Oxbridge cramming. Others may not have the grades, but I would be far happier sending my children there for the sense of community.
The elephant in the room, I think, is that there will never be a level playing field between state and private is that the latter can far more readily exclude people. It was a big step up I noticed entering VI form too - suddenly you only had those who wished to learn.
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SPK: I also plan to create ... a Calvinist Ordinariate
ken: I thought it was called Taize?
Posts: 272 | Registered: Jun 2011
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