Compulsory public education

[rusmeister]

Hi guys!
Hoping that this won't be quite as controversial as other topics I generally jump into with my unpopular views.
I also think that any issue can be related to the Close, and that one's worldview cannot logically be excluded from any discussion on truth.

That said...

I wonder how many people know about the origins of modern schooling, beyond the quick surface blurb on Horace Mann, and quickly jumping to integration in Arkansas and "No Child Left Behind"?

I've learned a lot in recent years, and ideas that at first sounded crackpot to me (especially John Taylor Gatto's) have gotten a lot of confirmation, certainly regarding American schooling. (I'm interested in other national histories of it as well, but know mostly about the American history of schooling. For a few years, for instance, I didn't accept Gatto's insistence on Prussia until, on reading Chesterton, I found him mentioning the connection off-handedly. Then I did research and found it to be true. I only just stumbled across confirmation, with exact location, pg numbers and everything, of a fantastic quote attributed to Woodrow Wilson. I've found that not everything is available on the net, which makes confirmation research frustrating at times, when the sources are books buried in dusty libraries (insert image of Gandalf in the library of Minas Tirith from PJ's LOTR:TFOTR).

But it seems to me that very few people know anything about this topic, when it is the very thing that, more than anything else (except arguably television) formed our childhoods and thinking. I forget who it was that said, "He who does not know the past does not understand the present.", and that surely applies to our understanding of public schools.

I'd also like to offer, for those who are curious about me and my strange ideas, a thread (over at Christian Forums) where I posted a lot of my own personal experience as a public school teacher.
www.christianforums.com/t6072877/

[Montresor]

I've found that not everything is available on the net.

You can say that again.

What exists on the net in terms of primary historical documentation isn't even the tip of the ice berg. The net is the very last place anyone should bother looking when doing research, unless they're looking at journal databases. I have lost count of the times that I have seen well known documents quoted incorrectly, or in such a cursory fashion as to be completely misleading.

Sorry for not addressing the point of your post, I just wanted to respond to this (since the study of History is my profession).

My thesis includes a short chapter on education in colonial Australia, specifically Queensland. It's not so much about the origins, as the ways in which texts falsified or ignored Aboriginal identity. The subject interests me, obviously, but I think you need to be more specific in what it is you're trying to engage in for others to post here.

[rusmeister]

Thanks, Montresor!
I agree re: the Internet - but if you live in a far-off place like I do, then fact-checking in public libraries as Gatto obviously did is pretty much out of the question for me, forcing me to reserve some doubt about quite a few things.

I think Gatto's thesis is largely correct, even if his proposals of solutions are weak and unclear. The history of the public schools we take for granted - and that played a major role in forming our thinking before we were ever able to intellectually defend ourselves - is therefore a critical and incredibly important thing as one of the most formative influences on most of our lives. I am curious as to who knows anything about that history. Can they at least name Horace Mann? Do they have any idea what he believed and what he was driving for? How about Edward Everett and his connections to both Mann and Prussian education? How about Prussian education itself? James Bryant Conant? Anything besides the superficial propaganda drivel that makes the rounds of public education, if that? In short, does anyone actually know anything? Or, as in all of my experience with everybody, it is a huge "I dunno", a big black hole? My experience in talking to people is that the common impression is that the public schools have always been here - oh yeah, there were one-room school houses where they paddled people and wore dunce caps, but somehow public schools as we know them today 'just appeared'. And this about the institution that educated - or failed to educate - them. If one were to show a similar ignorance about the history of, say, racial tension in the United States, and show a complete lack of knowledge that there was slavery, or a civil war, we would find such ignorance (edit: and assumptions on their part of their competency to comment on race relations in the US) astounding , and yet no one bats an eye about similar ignorance of the history of the schools that teach us - or don't teach us, and most of us have opinions about what ought to be done in schools.

So I'm asking if anyone actually knows anything.

If my own thesis is correct, then public schools are not broken - they are working just fine - Only their design function is not that which most people imagine it to be. But if one doesn't know the history, they have no ability to comment intelligently, any more than a person with no knowledge of American history could intelligently comment on America. My suspicion is that most know little on the subject, even here.

[michaelm]

It's interesting that I just found this thread, as a couple of years ago I worked with someone who was a big advocate for current education reform in the US as she (and a number of organizations that she is affliated with) are of the opinion that mandatory education does not reach a significant number of Americans.

I wish I was still in contact and could get her to post here so that there is more accuracy in what I post, but I'll try to summarize what I remember.

The biggest issue she has with American education is functional literacy. It's not something that is easy to measure, but it's essentially the ability to get through daily life without running into significant problems caused by varying levels of illiteracy.

According to international standards, America has a literacy percentage in excess of 99% of the population, but when you look at what constitutes literacy on an international level it means something different from what most people thing - the determination of whether or not a person is literate is that they have completed five or more years of school.

What she sees as the biggest problem to literacy is the large percentage of Americans who are home schooled. She immediately followed this with a statement that she has no objections to home schooling whatsoever - her objections are to the way it is administered in the US. Firstly, more than half the states have no testing requirement, so a HSD is awarded if all the correct paperwork is filed, and nothing more. Secondly, most states don't require any level of education from the person doing the home schooling.

Anyway, long story short - one of the organizations that she works with tries to measure functional literacy in the US, and their best guess based on the information they have is that slightly less than 3/4 of the US population are functionally literate, although more than 99% have finished 5 or more years of school and thus push the accepted literacy level over 99%.

She is an ex-high school teacher (in PA I think) and left the progression because she couldn't live on her teacher's salary. She got involved in literacy programs for kids who dropped out of HS, and then became an advocate for improving literacy across the board after that. Wish I had stayed in contact with her as she was really interesting to talk to and very passionate about improving literacy in the US.

[Linna Heartbooger]

Hey... I think I missed this thread too, when it was first created.

My experience in talking to people is that the common impression is that the public schools have always been here - oh yeah, there were one-room school houses with Dundee caps and where they paddled people

this sounds a little too much like me... it's one of those things you don't notice is missing. (An awareness of this history.)

That friend sounds like an interesting person!
Just to lay some of my cards on the table, we are homeschooling this year...

But man, I have seen homeschoolers span the gamut... from people who are super intense and driven to "ehh, let them do whatever."
I wouldn't think homeschooling made up a large enough fragment of the population to be that significant in the stats though..

[michaelm]

But man, I have seen homeschoolers span the gamut... from people who are super intense and driven to "ehh, let them do whatever."
I wouldn't think homeschooling made up a large enough fragment of the population to be that significant in the stats though..

Again, memory might be at fault, but I think it was something like 4% in any one year, but I think I misrepresented a little in the way I said it. The woman I worked with was an advocate for fixing the education system where it needed it, and homeschooling was just one of many things.

Overall the literacy levels were what she wanted to see improved, but it was not just homeschooling. It was something like a quarter of all kids enrolling in college needed remedial math and/or English tutoring before they could begin classes; and something like 20% of all functionally illiterate adults have a GDE or HSD.

Basically she was saying it's bad but we're pretending it's not bad and not trying to fix the problems.

[Orlion]

Homeschooling is problematic just because it does not seem to be regulated... due mostly to concerns about "religious freedom". So essentially, in many states (not all, I think it's only 12) you can decide to teach math as being a tool of the devil and should be avoided, also homeopathy is more valid then modern medicine. You can do that and screw up the kid and it counts as being equivalent to a high school education.

Which gets to another issue I have with homeschooling: it is almost entirely designed to avoid conflict of ideas. With public schools, you will get that even if it's just the parents saying something like, "well evolution is just a theory!" With conflict of ideas, the child gets to practice analytic skills to determine what idea he/she will accept and then how to live and interact with people who do not share those ideas.

I'm painting with a broad stroke, of course, but those are my observations on the matter.

[michaelm]

Homeschooling is a big mystery to all really though, as there is almost nothing in the way of stats to show it's definitively good or bad.

Here in SC I have met quite a few people who refuse to let their kids go into the school system because of their religion (most won't specify what the exact issue is though). I met some people from my sister-in-law's church some years ago, and they said they home schooled their kids because the school system's teachings are in conflict with the bible.

My sister-in-law actually took her son out of the school system for a year because of his low grades and her belief that the school system was failing him. He failed that entire year (in NC where there are testing requirements) and is now a grade behind as he has never caught up. She has a HSD and in general is pretty smart, but she had never taught anyone anything before and did not have to provide any sort of qualification.

[Orlion]

Here in SC I have met quite a few people who refuse to let their kids go into the school system because of their religion (most won't specify what the exact issue is though). I met some people from my sister-in-law's church some years ago, and they said they home schooled their kids because the school system's teachings are in conflict with the bible.

I have an issue with this sort of reasoning. It's akin to "I don't want my child brainwashed by the secular schools, so I'm going to brainwash him myself!" And they don't even bother with a private school that would provide the "religious backing". It's good ol' fashioned American Survivalism, us few against everybody else!

My sister-in-law actually took her son out of the school system for a year because of his low grades and her belief that the school system was failing him. He failed that entire year (in NC where there are testing requirements) and is now a grade behind as he has never caught up. She has a HSD and in general is pretty smart, but she had never taught anyone anything before and did not have to provide any sort of qualification.

This reason, I have no problem with. If a public school system is failing a student, that should be addressed. Even his failure during homeschooling is not necessarily a condemnation of homeschooling, it could actually mean that the school system had been failing to do what it's suppose to do for many years now.

[michaelm]

My sister-in-law actually took her son out of the school system for a year because of his low grades and her belief that the school system was failing him. He failed that entire year (in NC where there are testing requirements) and is now a grade behind as he has never caught up. She has a HSD and in general is pretty smart, but she had never taught anyone anything before and did not have to provide any sort of qualification.

This reason, I have no problem with. If a public school system is failing a student, that should be addressed. Even his failure during homeschooling is not necessarily a condemnation of homeschooling, it could actually mean that the school system had been failing to do what it's suppose to do for many years now.

To be honest though, I don't know that the problem was the school. He grew up with almost no discipline at home and his mom got angry when the school suggested that he attend classes during the summer. I think home schooling just made it worse and proved that the school was actually doing better than his mom could.

[Avatar]

"I don't want my child brainwashed by the secular schools, so I'm going to brainwash him myself!"

--A