Speaking as someone who appreciates home schooling, parochial and private schooling, this is still a poorly written hit piece using bad arguments.
1) Using “ambush interviews” is a way to guarantee bad answers. Walk up to a random *adult*, shove a microphone in their face, and ask them to name the justices of the Supreme Court, and most people will sound like idiots. But if you give them a few minutes to think, and they will be able to name several, some being able to name them all.
2) “Average public school” is meaningless. What is the most “average” U.S. state? New York or Utah? In a teacher’s union collective bargaining or right-to-work state?
3) The three big problems of public education are federal intrusion, state incompetence and corruption, and teachers union and “ivory tower leftist” disruption.
The first two of these feed off of each other, with some of the state legislatures using public schools for patronage jobs and unfair allocation of resources based on many things. But federal involvement is ridiculously expensive, taking money and student learning time away for whimsical and indoctrination purposes.
The federal intrusion is often done under threat of taking away funding for the federal school lunch program. But they have placed so many demands that some states are considering making the FSLP voluntary. If a school opts out, it can still provide lunches in its budget, but it will be freed of tons of paperwork and students will have more time for their studies.
Teachers unions are now being challenged by states stripping away the collective bargaining rights of teachers, which makes teachers no longer “blue collar”, but “white collar”, with rewards that are performance based.
The worst “ivory tower leftist” interference was with the creation of Noam Chomsky’s ‘whole language English’ instruction, that systematically wiped out near educational parity of black students with white students, condemning million of black children to life long poverty. As such, Chomsky has done more to “keep the black man down” than did Jefferson Davis.
Despite the enthusiastic support of idealistic young teachers, indoctrinated as they have been in such dreck, their utter failure means that such schemes must be prohibited if students are to succeed.
The bottom line is that yes, there is a place for public schooling, but only if such schools are supported by parents, school boards, and states, and required to perform or perish.
Government schooling is a socialist-entitlement. Simply by attending children risk learning to be comfortable with taking money from a neighbor for a tuition-free service. Well?...If government and the voting mob can give them tuition-free school, why not use the government and the voting mob to get **lots** of “free” stuff?
Our nation's system of socialist-entitlement schooling is GODLESS! Simply by attending the child will learn to think and reason godlessly. He must just to cooperate in the classroom. How could it be otherwise?
And...Even at their best our nation's socialist schools offered up a non-neutral, generic, and lukewarm Protestantism. What does Christ do with the lukewarm? He spits them out of His mouth!
It is like trying to reform an abortion center.
Government schools are utterly godless in their worldview. Just to cooperate in the classroom the child must learn to think and reason godlessly. WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MORAL MIND WOULD DO THAT TO A CHILD?????
I hold those who work in the nation's godless socialist schools in as much contempt as I do those who work in abortion centers. Geeze! At least the little murdered babies fly directly into the arms of Jesus. Far, far, far too many of the kids subjected to the godless government indoctrination suffer sad consequences all their temporal and possibly eternal lives.
No.
The biggest problem is forced pretending.
I had no idea that came from Chomsky the communist. I remember when that was first introduced, my oldest was in 2nd grade and I had an argument with his teacher about it. I lost, they were going to shove it down his throat anyway. So I bought a phonics reading package from a customer of mine, got educated about how important reading by phonics was and taught my two younger children how to read before they reached 1st grade.
Yes my children were educated in the public schools but I did what I could to prevent indoctrination. Finally had to move them out of the area to a small rural town in Oregon where the teachers were farmers and ranchers and taught hunter safety courses on the school grounds. My oldest graduated from Elkton High School in the year 2000 with 23 other kids!! 85 was the total student body count grades 9-12.