Posted on 06/20/2011 9:40:15 AM PDT by RobRoy
As futurists observe the usage and functionality of the internet, more and more of us have predicted an end to the relevance of Public schools. Well, the Khan Academy site may be the first clear indicator that public schools really are a dead institution walking.
Imagine a future world where, via a home computer, laptop, tablet or even smart phone you can access your own personal curriculum of k-12 level class work complete with lectures, follow up questions and help? Imagine it also covers subjects that public school seldom covers, like the intricacies of how banking works?
Well, a friend of mine sent me a link today to just such a site. My jaw dropped when I saw it. I felt like I had been projected into a future where children can be effectively educated at their own pace, by their own parents, completely separate from the indoctrination of public schools, teachers unions, and other leaders with an “agenda”. In this future, all education curriculums are chosen by the parents and child. It can be worked at any time; it can be augmented by external sources on the internet, public libraries, or even field trips. And the parents control the teaching and “indoctrination” of their own children.
And anyone with a thirst for knowledge will find this a huge opportunity to not only learn about many diverse subjects them self, but also as a springboard to much deeper investigation of whatever subject catches their fancy.
This future has arrived. And I know what you are thinking: this will be shut down by “them” in short order. Well, “they” have already tried and failed. This site has significant backing and anything that happens in this vein will be exposed to the light of day – and the press. And you cannot patent Algebra. Teachers unions teamed with book publishers in some states to get the state legislatures to limit what methods can even be used in classrooms funded with public dollars. But this is privately funded and is a non-profit academy. The NEA and Luddite book publishers are facing their looming obsolescence with great apprehension.
This needs to go VIRAL. It could literally change the future of the US and the world as we know it – and for the good!
>>It would be interesting to see SAT scores differentiated by public vs private schools.<<
There is actually a whole section of lessons on SAT prep. :)
I think he meant actual comparisons between the scores.
But I see what you mean.
That said, I did pretty poorly on mine.
I’m not a parent, lol.
>>What is the political bent of this site?<<
The good news is that it is all there right in front of God and everybody. If you want to know what is being taught to your child, you can scan or take the courses yourself!
Try getting permission to sit in your child’s classroom. My wife tried. It’s possible, but strongly discouraged and very difficult to actually pull off.
Spot On Post of The Day
The math & science MAY be okay, but I wanted an idea of the ideology so I went straight to the French Revolution. The version here is exactly what the French (and the communists) would have us believe. “Sal” or whoever’s teaching doesn’t bother to mention that the claims about Marie Antoinette’s grain-stockpile were false, that the peasants who attacked Versailles purportedly to steal the nonexisent grain destroyed every bit of the palace they could reach and killed or captured for later killing anyone—servants as well as nobility—they encountered.
Aside from his description of the problem, which included a veiled claim that the clergy had too much power, I believe his percentages of the three estates are also way off. Point.five percent of the population were clergy? when 1.5% is nobility? I don’t think so. Parish priests alone would outnumber the nobility, and that doesn’t include the hundreds of monasteries and cathedral staffs throughout the country.
His comparison of The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen to the Declaration of Independence was downright insulting. God is never mentioned in his spiel, and because of that, Godlessness also goes unmentioned.
Most obvious of all, however, is the same old same-old: class warfare and its absolute justification.
I can’t wait to see what he says about the Reign of Terror . . .
http://www.khanacademy.org/video/communism?playlist=History
You may want to seek another source for this topic.
Public education does seem to be a Soviet era relic.
Expensive, aging facilities, unresponsive bureaucracies, lack of results, low morale. They’re just missing a picture of Breszhnev on the walls.
Thanks for the post!
Not in the least surprising, especially when you consider this little gem from (where else) the commie manifesto:"Free education for all children in government schools".
“My son went through the public school system and he was in the top 1% across the nation.”
Congrats to your son.
He accomplished that in spite of the “union idiots” that “eddicated” him.
If you are in the top 1% across the nation, how MUCH more better can you do? lol
>>You may want to seek another source for this topic.<<
I thought that part was excellent, actually. It’s definitely high level. For a person (adult or child) who was ignorant on the subject but had a love of history, this might be the beginning of in depth study via books and internet.
I think he was pretty fair about describing communism. He did a good job with the graph, I felt, as well. I also agree with where he put the four nations (well, russia and USSR as two of them). He did demonstrate how the communist nations have pulled back on the economic part, while remaining totalitarian in other ways.
It is also useful for private schools
Feds would set the requirements for federal recognition and acceptance of Associate, Bacholers, Masters and PHD degrees for hiring into the Federal government.
Uh, no. That is the worst idea I have seen on this site in ten years. What is so wrong with competing sets of credentials? Do your Federal bureaucrats guarantee competency?
I thought not.
I'll repeat a prior post here for benefit of discussion:
Any human then could use any means imaginable to acquire the necessary knowledge to pass We Test tests. Any school would do, no accreditation required. The Internet is loaded with coursework and curricula, libraries and lab-simulators. Any human with the drive and intelligence to learn on their own could then qualify for a job. No saving for decades, no brainwashing, completely transferable work, at any pace one can withstand. Any employer could then simply select from a menu of We Test specifications instead of a diploma, at any level. We Test tests.
One would think that this should have happened a long time ago, but in fact there is one thing standing in the way that makes the realization of this seeming inevitability a matter of now or never.
State licensing requires degreed credentials obtainable only at said profligate, bureaucratic and unaccountable institutions charging outrageous fees and demanding excessive time as only a State monopoly could command. Why not just amend the legislation specifying education for state licensure by adding the simple words, "or equivalent"?
As an example of how little it would take, consider my wife. She just passed her board certification exam as a Clinical Nurse Specialist in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit. She walked into H&R Block, sat at a computer, took a three-hour exam harder than anything she'd endured in her Masters' Program at Cal State San Francisco, and within five minutes after completion had her passing grade. If the private system can handle a test that specialized, why can't it test arithmetic, algebra, US history, or college chemistry? Instead of bricks and mortar, it would be e-books in quarters. Why not?
Well, that sounds like his predicament. He should have graduated, but didn't and had to do summer school. When I looked at his computer and the progress chart, I saw that he was over a year behind in a couple of his classes, and a several quarters behind in others. I don't know if he ever graduated.
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