Then you have a VERY short-sighted view/knowledge of history. "Public Schools" worked just fine as long as funding and control were at the LOCAL level.
Many of them were as good or better than the best private schools working with less funding and a "lesser" class of students.
The problems started when the influx of money to the schools (and thus control) moved from the local community to the state and then later to the federal level.
The idea that public schools of any sort are automatically "bad" is ludicrous.
“The idea that public schools of any sort are automatically “bad” is ludicrous.”
Actually, the system began to rot from within when atheist/socialist John Dewey became the dominant influence in American education. The reading methods were sabotaged, resulting in ever-increasing illiteracy until the rate now hovers around 40% to 50% and higher in some school districts. Every child who can’t read becomes a low-information voter.
The public schools adopted the Prussian model after the civil war, which ipso facto, meant schools operated by the state. But public education, as originally under stood embraces the private schools as well, just as public heslth embraces all private medical facilities. Yes, the schools have socialized because the private schools are largely unable to compete financially.
It only took one to three generations of locally controlled collectivist schooling to give the nation voters who were comfortable with Franklin D. Roosevelt and his compulsory-use, socialist-entitlement, and single-payer programs.
Children who attend collectivist and compulsory ( that means police enforcement) risk learning to be comfortable with government compulsion and socialism.
At first Obamacare won't be that bad. It will take a few generations to fully extinguish the moral and ethical values now found in the workers in today's health system. ( schools). Then when the true horror of socialist medicine ( schooling) is fully felt we will see the same arguments now used to urge reform of the government schools. For example:
Socialist medicine ( socialist-entitlement schooling) worked just find as long as the funding and control of the death panels was on the LOCAL level.
Many socialist hospitals( socialist-entitlement K-12 schools) were better than the best private hospitals ( schools).
The problem with socialist medicine ( socialist K-12 schooling) started with the influx of money to the hospitals ( collectivist school districts) and away from local control.
Socialist medicine ( socialist-schooling)was just fine until the unions moved in.
etc...etc....etc.
Fundamentally, socialism doesn't work. Socialist-entitlement and single-payer K-12 schooling gave the nation socialist presidents and was doomed to fail.
The problems started when the influx of money to the schools (and thus control) moved from the local community to the state and then later to the federal level. The idea that public schools of any sort are automatically "bad" is ludicrous.
There's some great conservative thinking on this thread including yours.
The Northwest Ordinance was the government charter for the public education system. (Among other purposes for that document, such as formalizing the process by which states were formed out of territories.) This foundation of public education explicitly declared that RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLES are an essential part of education, since they are the source of our moral code.
The Declaration of Independence says that we're "endowed by [our] Creator with certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." It also states that the Founding Fathers "pledge our lives, our fortunes and our sacred Honor" to making the new Republic succeed.
Who was this "Creator"? Why did they believe that He was the source of what are now called "natural" rights? And why did they believe their honor to be sacred if their fortunes and even their very lives were not? What does "sacred" mean anyway?
Left-wing secularists are quick to point out that only the Constitution has the force of law, and the Declaration does not. But the Declaration has value beypnd measure as a statement of our Founding Fathers' PRINCIPLES, much like the party platform of the Democratic Party. And the Northwest Ordinance has the same force of law as the Constitution.
I understand the need for federal and state level funds for public schools. After all, many areas are impoverished (particularly with a socialist government destroying jobs and any incentives to create new jobs), and providing such funds enables children in those regions to get good quality educations, and escape the poverty cycle.
But federal and state level control of the curriculum, and especially extra-curricular BS like Planned Parenthood and its culture of death, must be sharply curtailed. They need to be sure that a very basic and very robust system of teaching math, English reading and writing skills, and lab science (not sex education) is followed and interscholastic sports are conducted in a consistent and safe manner. That is all.
Schooling is harmful to children in every sense, in principle. Even private schools are harmful. Compulsory government schools are simply worse.
See my post #57, and especially the book mentioned at the end.
The model of schooling that was forced upon the American people, and later adopted by private schools, was the invention of humanist utopians and behavioral psychologists, from the very beginning.