Excellent, rational essay and post. However, you will be flamed by the radical homeschool crowd because you implied that prior to the 1970’s that public schools were not total communist indoctrination camps.
But, you are correct in that federal control has enveloped the public education system. The only way to change that is for conservatives to become teachers, principals, local school district leaders, state legislators, and govenors. These people still have a lot of power over what is taught in the local school districts.
The radical homeschooler group (and, by the way, I do not include all homeschoolers to be in that camp - my wife and I homeschooled one of our children, too) paints all public schools as being equally bad everywhere. The problem with that is - do we say all churches are equally bad because there are extremely liberal ones or left leaning ones?
Are all pastors or priests equally bad because there are some who turn out to be con-men or pedophiles??
I don’t know if this change is possible because, as was demonstrated in the last election, the low information voters are in charge. The only political hope I can see is if state govenors stand up to the feds and say “No, we are not going to follow your crap anymore”. They must refuse the money from the Dept of Ed, they must say no to the so-called “common-core” curriculum (states do not have to cooperate with this stuff). Demand your state governments and govenors to grow a pair and tell them to “just say NO”.
You are correct that the public school system in our country was not what it has become in the last 30 years (and, there are still some states and districts that have not yet sucumbed). The radical homeschoolers are correct that Dewey was bad news, but the problem with their theory is that there was no federal department of education when Dewey was around. Yes, he definitely had influence on public education, but the more radical of his ideas were not a part of most public school systems because that were run and supervised completely on the local state and local school district level.
Most teachers, at the elementory level and even somewhat on the secondary level, prior to the 1970’s did not have to have a college degree to teach - just a high school diploma. Most teachers and principals grew up and lived in the area where they now taught. Local control was predominate. If a teacher or principal went whacky, the local community rose up and got rid of them (unfortunately, that didn’t always work out as in the Scopes “monkey” trial) - but, as I said, most schools and districts were made up of people who had a history and roots in that community.
As the late 60’s and then the 1970’s arrived, unions took control of many states and began requiring all teachers in those states be in their union, college degrees for teaching in general were also now a requirement. This took predominance away from the local community in knowing who was being hired as teachers. Now, with college degrees being required, states began hiring newly-graduated “education” students from all across the country - graduates that were being indoctrinated in socialist ideology and the latest “new” educational methodologies.
Of course, over time, these college “educated” educators became principals and school district personnel - all this had a tremendous influence on public education. In the Blue states where unions dominated society in general and Dems controlled the cities and school districts for ages, the public school systems in those areas began to show the increasing signs of deterioration. State governments in the east were dominated by Dems and liberals, big cities everywhere across the country were also dominated in the same way.
Holdout schools and districts were still plentiful in the flyover states and in more rural areas, but it is ever shrinking. Then along comes, as you mentioned, Carter’s new Dept. of Education. That was the worst thing to happen to public education as it extended more and more federal control over public schools because of the money.
I’ve gone on too long, but I just wanted to compliment you and your excellent post. Don’t let the radical homeschoolers discourage you. As I said, I don’t know if this can be turned around - heck, we don’t know if the country can be turned around, but we need to try.
It is no longer radical to **know** that government schooling can not be reformed. Why?
Answer: Because it is impossible to reform a socialist-funded, single-payer, compulsory-use entitlement that is a price-fixed government monopoly cartel.
It isn’t just some homeschoolers who are writing, posting, and say this.
Solution: Begin the process of privatizing all education, find as many alternatives to college attendance as possible, and reform what would remain of our universities.
Having conservatives work in the socialist-funded, single-payer, godless, and compulsory government entitlement schools hoping for reform is as likely as having conservatives work in abortuaries or concentration camps hoping for reform.
If the foundation is rotten ( and all government K-12 schooling is built on the rotten foundation of socialism) the **entire** structure is doomed to fail ( as it has).