Posted on 01/05/2013 6:02:47 AM PST by wintertime
“These studies have never been done one way or the other.”
There are plenty of educational studies that show good or bad results at this or that school with this or that curriculum, etc.
The difficulty is that they look at correlations, and thus, it’s difficult to say what is only correlation, and where there is causation. Do you understand why this is the usual methodology used? Do you understand the difficulty in conducting rigorous experiments in this field, on such a large question?
“If your children were successful in their schooling, I think we would likely find that your home practices and mine were similar in many ways,...”
I think if the studies were done, folks would criticize the researchers for coming up with the obvious, “Students Who Study Habitually Do Better in School.”
“As far as our Founding Fathers, we can speculate all day on what they might think of modern government owned and run schooling.”
It’s not speculation. Government-funded and -run schools were established and were being established during the founding era of our country. The state and local governments contemporaneous to the federal governments of Washington, Adams, Jefferson and the rest were busy setting up public school systems. No one objected in principle.
“2) Is fundamentally and structurally a First Amendment and freedom of conscience abomination to those forced to use it and to those forced to fund it.”
That’s like saying the death penalty is a violation of the 8th Amendment because it’s cruel and unusual punishment. In that the Founders lived at a time where the death penalty was widely accepted as the punishment for certain crimes, it would certainly be news to them that the death penalty was a constitutional violation.
Similarly, in that the Founders lived in a time and place where folks were getting busy setting up these government-funded and -run schools, it would have been news to them to read what you’ve written, that they are “fundamentally and structurally a First Amendment and freedom of conscience abomination to those forced to use it and to those forced to fund it.”
I can’t see any merit to your arguments concerning the Founders. Bottom line - they saw public schools established and run, and found them unobjectionable to the Constitution they’d written.
sitetest
I have read and followed your posts for some time and while I may disagree with some of them, the tight, cogent arguments made are difficult to simply overlook without introspection.
I would warn you that if you continue to challenge the progenitor of this thread, you may find your opinions and attempts to open up to rational thought and fair debate shut down quickly like a child sticking their fingers in their ears.
Unless it is to hear its own echo, the progenitor will not entertain any thoughts that are not equally vitriolic and condemning of the public education system. Further, empirical evidence will serve no purpose although spurious argument, red herring and equivocation are frequently employed to further the progenitor’s point.
As a courtesy, I am not mentioning or using the name of the progenitor in the post or ping. This was made as a direct request.
Again, your posts are always pleasurable to read.
Best to you and yours.
Hopefully they will be scarred straight.
Why are communities demanding that 18 year old young men ( whose only crime was to be born) attend prison-like school where they are treated in many ways like a state prisoner? Why should a community do to this to a 17 year old or to any child of any age? These children have committed no crime but the state treats them like prisoners in their prison-like state schools.
Well truancy is a crime. If you are enrolled in a school and do not attend you are truant., Now there are other options such as homeschooling or private schools, but if you are enrolled and do not attend you are a criminal.
Please do not ping me, or send private mail to me for the duration of this thread. Comment as you wish to others or use the “all” option. You may use my name or refer to my posts but please no contact.
This is a respectful and polite request.
wintertime
Very interesting article! I recommend it to other Freepers.
What if youth were not released to a life of crime but to **work** instead in the company of mature adult mentors? Wasn't that the case in the past, as recently as the Greatest Generation?
In the article it states that while during school days property crime decreases by 14% violent crime against people **increases* by 28%. So?....Why would any rational parent want their children forced into the company of these thugs and thugettes in prison-like facilities that are misnamed “schools”?
By the way, excellent observations on your part.
The judge cares more about property than subjecting the good kids in the prison-like school to these malcontents.
If the condemned are adult enough to be sent to adult lockup how can they be truants?
My observation:
Yes, many of the features and policies of the modern prison-like school are there for the protection of the child, but doesn't treating children like prisoners teach them to be comfortable with becoming state prisoners? Surely this will be reflected in the voting booth in a few years.
And....Regarding “good” schools. Where are the studies that prove they are good? Answer: They have never been done.
It is **unknown** how much of a so-called “good” school's scores are due to the afterschooling and preschooling done **In the HOME** by the parents, the child himself doing home study, and professional or non-professional tutoring.
My observations from working with the tutoring program in our church:
-—These children coming to church tutoring had as much assigned homework as my homeschooling children did all day. Seriously! So?....If they are doing as much homework as academically successful children, aren't these institutionalized children,( if they do their homework), homeschooling after school?
— Maybe the only thing “good” government schools are doing is sending home a very expensive curriculum for the parents and child to follow in the home, and these institutional schools are merely testing, grading, and sorting centers.
-—Finally....It is my anecdotal observation that there is no difference between the home habits, educational values, and the amount of time spent at the kitchen table in formal homework between academically successful institutionalized children and successful homeschoolers.
We spend MORE on K-12 schooling in this nation than we do on the military on a massive K-12 program that has never been proven to be effective. It is entirely possible that any child's academic success is entirely due to the homeschooling ( afterschooling) done OUTSIDE of the government schools. If this is so, institutionalized schooling my be retarding the academic, social, and emotional development of the child from healthy homes. And....To reach the child in dysfunctional families the school would need to duplicate what is missing in a functional family and provide a means to mentor dysfunctional parents. KIPP schools may be an example.
Thank you for the compliments.
“I would warn you that if you continue to challenge the progenitor of this thread,...”
Oh, don't worry. I've been informed by the “progenitor of this thread” via FR e-mail that I am not a person of goodwill and thus she will not be posting back to me in the future. However, because I am not a threat to her family (she gets a point for maintaining contact with reality on that topic), I will not be politely asked to refrain from posting to her.
LOL.
The timing of her missive is interesting, in that it came shortly before I posted my latest to her on the thread, but well after she'd replied to me on-thread to my previous post.
I interpret this as the white flag of surrender. Whaddaya think?
sitetest
Can't say I've succeeded at following all of its ins and outs, especially the personal stuff, but I think I've understood enough of it to make a bit of commentary in some areas that I think are extremely important.
First, there can be no doubt that there were some founders who were very much enamored of the idea of public education. Some of them even favored the Spartan model, an intrinsically statist, militaristic sort of system if there ever was one. (A perfect fit for the later Prussian model that was used to build out public education in America.) Take the children from their mothers at six or seven and turn them into machines for the state.
One of the most prominent of this group was Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and the Surgeon General of the Continental Army. In reading what he wrote on this subject I get the idea that he was driven by fear that liberty, and the idea of republican governance, could not possibly survive unless it was forced down the throats of the people from the earliest ages.
But even he understood the basis for true education, a basis that is, of course, foreign (by court edict) to the system of public education we now have:
"The only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in Religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments...But the religion I mean to recommend in this place, is that of the New Testament...all its doctrines and precepts are calculated to promote the happiness of society, and the safety and well being of civil government. A Christian cannot fail of being a republican. The history of the creation of man, and of the relation of our species to each other by birth, which is recorded in the Old Testament, is the best refutation that can be given to the divine right of kings, and the strongest argument that can be used in favor of the original and natural equality of all mankind. A Christian, I say again, cannot fail of being a republican, for every precept of the Gospel inculcates those degrees of humility, self-denial, and brotherly kindness, which are directly opposed to the pride of monarchy and the pageantry of a court. A Christian cannot fail of being useful to the republic, for his religion teacheth him, that no man 'liveth to himself.' And lastly, a Christian cannot fail of being wholly inoffensive, for his religion teacheth him, in all things to do to others what he would wish, in like circumstances, they should do to him."
The cure that I have been proposing for quite some time is what I call "T.L.C." ie True Local Control.
We are pouring vast sums of treasure into a system that now represents a real danger to the spiritual, moral, and physical well-being of our children particularly, and of our republic generally.
So, for our own good, let's completely cut the national government out of the education equation for starters. They have no legitimate constitutional purview in this area. And, anyway, it makes no sense on a practical level whatsoever for us to send our education dollar to Washington, DC, have them run it through a huge bureaucracy and then send a tiny fraction back to us with strings attached.
Secondly, since well in excess of half of our state budgets are being poured down the public education rathole, let's cut the state capitals out of the equation too. State level bureaucrats no more educate a single child than federal bureaucrats do. Even though many, if not most, of our state constitutions do make provision for public education, this can be done legislatively, and where necessary, by constitutional amendment.
If we must have free schools, public schools, let them be governed solely by the parents and the local taxpayers. In my opinion, any education dollar that leaves the county is well on its way to being not only squandered, but used against us.
And lastly, let us simply reject the idea that federal courts or anyone else have any constitutionally-legitimate power to tell us what the content of our curriculum must be. The First Amendment forbids Congress from making any laws in this area, and therefore the courts cannot possibly have any rightful power to rule over these decisions. They can't rule on laws that can't possibly legitimately exist.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
We must separate school and state, before it is too late.
As I said, just a few quick thoughts this morning ...
New tagline ...
One other thought:
I think compulsory attendance laws are a gross violation of the God-given, unalienable rights of parents.
Admittedly, lack of same risks having a certain number of uneducated cretins in our midst.
But, liberty is risky.
And heck, look how many uneducated cretins we have now anyway.
Surrender? To surrender would mean a complete cessation of activities and posts.
It is a struggle against cognitive dissonance. Thinking about deep topics which make you question cherished beliefs and deep convictions makes brain cells work. This leads to headaches in some.
So, avoid thinking - ask posters not to bother you so you can spew vitriol and hatred and hear your echo.
Welcome to the club! Or should I start a ping list....
And, notice my tagline if you will.
First.....Moving toward local control is likely possible and an idea that could likely be sold to our cautious and overly worked and overly exhausted sheeple neighbors. Honestly, the sheeple are fearful of letting go of their government school entitlement and this fear must be acknowledged by those of us who are striving for reform. By the way, even county or city-wide ownership of government schools is too large. The local control should be no more than a few hundred or thousand families.
Second,....Once education is returned to the smallest possible local level then there is the possibility that some districts will be more courageous about experimenting with vouchers, tax credits, and charters. Some brave groups of citizens may even choose to abolish all government schooling and experiment with charity-funded schooling and endownment-funded private schooling in settings that are not prison-like Prussian or brick and mortar based.
Third....With success with privatization in small local districts the sheeple will be more likely to accept what has been proven to work in other districts and have the brave hearts to move off of their government school plantation.
As for the Founders...We can only speculate on what they might think of today's prison-like monstrosity of government owned and run schooling. My guess is that they would be appalled.
Finally....Personally, I consider our nation's system of godless, socialist-funded, single-payer, and compulsory schooling to be soooo hurtful to the child and such a threat to our nation that I have made a decision. I will NOT have a government school worker for a friend. They are too evil, too stupid, or too much of a well-meaning and good hearted USEFUL IDIOT to be a friend.
Yes, I consider government schooling to be **that** evil and **that** much of a threat to our continuing freedom.
One more thing:
There is a lot of personal stuff. Isn’t there? I choose not to participate in it or have it clutter my ping list.
Pour yourself a good stiff drink and read this book for free on line: The Underground History of American Education
It's a real eye-opener.
There is a lot of personal stuff. Isn’t there? I choose not to participate in it or have it clutter my ping list.
The person who posted this had also just finished stating this:
.Personally, I consider our nation's system of godless, socialist-funded, single-payer, and compulsory schooling to be soooo hurtful to the child and such a threat to our nation that I have made a decision. I will NOT have a government school worker for a friend. They are too evil, too stupid, or too much of a well-meaning and good hearted USEFUL IDIOT to be a friend.
Speaking of personal.....................
Great link.
From what I've read, Mann went to Prussia to study its school system, but left before seeing it in operation. Nevertheless, he issued a glowing report to the Boston School Committee. In his preceeding report, he advocated the pseudo-science of phrenology.
Tax-funded schooling was a minor institution prior to the advent of compulsory attendance laws, the origins of which were based in anti-Catholicism. Advocates sought to force the children of poor, Boston, Irish Catholic immigrants into the Protestant government schools. This was at the height of the Know Nothing movement.
Catholic bishops reacted by forming Catholic schools. Unfortunately, these schools adopted the Prussian pedagogical methodology in vogue at the time, which is why they are similar in many destructive ways to government schools today.
I was told I “**WAS** a threat
Go figure. I live in VA and she lives in Utah. Yeah, I’m heading all the way out there to mess with her.
NOT
When did he/ she get kicked out of Va?
Please lock this thread or delete his/ her posts
My comments are entirely about our **nation’s** system of government owned and run schooling. All comments are **general** in nature.
What? Is any criticism of the government employees ( in **general**) now supposed to be personal abuse?
If that is the case then this is an effective way to shut down all discussion about about the abysmal state of education in our nation.
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