What’s the purpose of public education anyway

Townhall.com ^ | September 28, 2011 | Marybeth Hicks

[Kaslin]

Barely enough time has passed for bologna sandwiches to begin rotting in school lockers, yet the 2011-2012 school year is shaping up to be one of the stinkiest ever, if we’re measuring in episodes of putrid political correctness and radicalism.

Already:

A group in Brookline, Massachusetts is working to ban the Pledge of Allegiance from its school district on the grounds that reciting it is “un-American” and also might promote bullying of students who refuse to say it;

A student in Fort Worth, Texas, was suspended for expressing privately to another student, unrelated to the content of the German class in which they were, that his Christian beliefs taught him that homosexuality is wrong. The teacher, overhearing the private comment, sent the student to the principal’s office for disciplinary action – not for holding a side conversation during class, but for opposing homosexuality;

A mother in the Sierra Sands Unified School District in California learned from her kindergarten and third-grade daughters that a male employee of the school cafeteria came to work attired in make-up and a tank top, revealing a bra with exposed straps. The District claimed, “its hands were tied” because, while the attire in question would not be permitted for students, it could not limit a transvestite from dressing in drag for work even if such behavior disrupts the learning environment.

Meanwhile, parents in California work to overturn SB48, the bill signed into law in July by Gov. Jerry Brown that requires schools in that state to teach history and social studies lessons that celebrate the accomplishments of LGBT individuals and require that homosexuality, bisexuality, and transgenderism be presented to California school children exclusively in a positive light.

Before the school year even began, a Monroe Township Schools in Williamstown, New Jersey, apologized to parents for placing books on its summer required reading list that included graphic descriptions of lesbian sex and a homosexual orgy, as well as recreational drug use. A committee of teachers, administrators and librarians came up with the summer reading list, which was then approved by the school board, implying educators endorsed the content of the books.

New this year, New York City’s public school students will sit through mandatory comprehensive sexuality education classes, including specific “age appropriate” information about sexual behavior, contraception, LBGT issues, gender identity, and sexual questioning. The district decides what is “age appropriate.” Parents who object to the material must opt out of the course for their children, assuming they get proper notification of when such material will be presented.

Meanwhile, despite abysmal progress on the core subjects necessary to be considered nominally well-educated, students in the District of Columbia’s 5th, 8th and 10th grades will take the nation’s first standardized sex ed test come the spring.

It’s almost like the folks in charge of public school education in this nation are deliberately using the schools to achieve their goals of social engineering and indoctrinating youth in a Leftist political belief system.

Oh wait. That’s exactly what they're doing.

From "radical math" (yes, you can teach math for social justice), to revisionist history (Howard Zinn’s "A People’s History of the United States" remains a listed resource for A.P. American History students), from eco-radicalism that passes for hard science to government classes that barely mention the word "republic" when describing that thing our Founders created, we seem to have lost sight of the real purpose of America’s public schools.

In fact, they always have had a goal of indoctrination; to wit: To instill in our youngest citizens the knowledge of our civics and history and the shared code of morality (read: Judeo-Christian ethics) to become productive, informed and educated American citizens.

You can give all the standardized tests you want, but by any measure, our public schools haven’t been getting that mission accomplished for a long time.

Unfortunately, it’s not looking like this school year will be any different.

[Tublecane]

“What’s the purpose of public education anyway”

Something about citizenship and making money/generating tax revenue.

[GunsareOK]

....our public schools haven’t been getting that mission accomplished for a long time......

Au contraire Pierre! They have been getting the mission of promoting socialism accomplished for a long time.

[Howie66]

In the present, it appears that the purpose of “public” education” is the indoctrination of our children to an Anti-America agenda as well as the instilling “values” that embrace the deviant, perverted “lifestyle” that also demonizes our standards on religion and traditional values.

The nice thing is that not only do we get to fully fund this but we also have no say in the matter.

[Cboldt]

Tenth plank of the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx.

[gunnyg]

education (indoctrination) is not a function of government (gubmint) in any way, shape, form—also countless other areas of this and that buttinskiism!

[Texas Eagle]

What’s the purpose of public education anyway

To guarantee a future of citizens stupid enough to vote for DemocRATS.

[Little Ray]

‘Cause illiterates are really, really dangerous drivers? And can’t order from the McDonalds menu unless it has pictures?

[trisham]

What’s the purpose of public education anyway

******************************

Propaganda.

[Red Badger]

The purpose of public education is to produce human beings with the barest of educations necessary to perform the menial tasks of self support in a world where the elites control the means of production.........

[stormer]

“What’s the purpose of public education anyway”

I would hope one goal would be to instruct future writers on the construction of interrogative sentences and the value of the eroteme.

[Stormdog]

????????

[MrB]

I believe John Dewey stated that very thing,
but in more flowery and high minded wording.

[LearsFool]

The Underground History of American Education

I was a stauch public school supporter for most of my life, until a few years ago a FReeper pointed me to this book. It made me do a complete 180.

[ETL]

From Investor's Business Daily (IBD), August 27, 2008:

"Ayers, now a tenured distinguished professor of education at UIC, works to educate teachers in socialist revolutionary ideology, urging that it be passed on to impressionable students.

One of Ayer's descriptions for a course called 'Improving Learning Environments' says prospective K-12 teachers need to 'be aware of the social and moral universe we inhabit and ... be a teacher capable of hope and struggle, outrage and action, teaching for social justice and liberation.

The Annenberg papers are quite extensive — 132 boxes containing 947 file folders with 70 linear feet of material. They undoubtedly contain more surprises regarding Obama's relationship with Ayers, one of many relationships Obama has sought to hide.'..."

Article: Annenberg Papers: Putting On Ayers?
http://www.ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=304729375940845
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REVOLUTION: Voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA [Maoist]
[Revolution] Interview with Bill Ayers, Revolution #63, October 1, 2006:
"On Progressive Education, Critical Thinking and the Cowardice of Some in Dangerous Times"
http://rwor.org/a/063/ayers-en.html
_____________________________________________________

"It was at the Chicago home of [Bill] Ayers and [Bernardine] Dohrn that Obama, then an up-and-coming 'community organizer,' had his political coming out party in 1995. Not content with this rite of passage in Lefty World — where unrepentant terrorists are regarded as progressive luminaries, still working 'only to educate' — both Obamas tended to the relationship with the Ayers."
Article: The Company He Keeps:
Meet Obama’s circle: The same old America-hating Left
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YThjYTU1ZDBjNmQ2YzcwNzU1MmYwN2JiMWY0ZGI0NDA=&w=MA==
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"This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who's a professor of English..."
--B.H. Obama

YouTube Video:
The O'Reilly Factor confronts Bill Ayers:
October 24, 2008:
(note the red communist star on his shirt)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP3uvK9gTIY

[Skepolitic]

Don’t forget about public education’s primary objective: secure employment and remuneration for a key Democrat Party constituency.

Even the effective indoctrination of the next generation comes second to that objective.

[rbbeachkid]

Great book! The whole idea that personal responsibility includes the duty to educate your own children has become so foreign to us is such a relatively short time.

[Red Badger]

I’m not flowery or high minded.........

[Georgia Girl 2]

Privatize it.

[annieokie]

PREACH IT, your right on.