What is the purpose of public education in America?
The structure of our public education system (K through High School) has not changed much since my grandparents' time, yet the world is very different. I'd like to hear from educators and others on what the goal(s) of public ed should be. Is it to instill values common to good citizenship? Is it to provide everyone with a minimum common knowledge level? Is it to provide everyone with the capability to earn a living and be economically productive? It seems to me that unless we first decide what the purpose of education should be, other questions about curriculum and the role of teachers and parents in their children's education will be left as directionless issue-based fodder.
Who thinks we should do away with public education?
Government schools are a massive failure. Now, leftists, when considering whether my statement is correct please consider both the COSTS and the BENEFITS. Thank you. Now, yes, we need to get government out of the education business through all means, like vouchers. I will not entertain the fantasy that in my lifetime the government school system will be dismantled, but I do sincerely hope that more and more parents realize what a cruel outcome is for their children to get an "education" in a government school and emerge woefull unprepared for the next stage of life and they support voucher programs to get some of that money they contribute for nothing and put it to good use.
Should we abolish the public education system?
My son went to public school and for a while it worked out okay. However one day he came home from middle school and became spewing some liberal propaganda that he had learned from his history teacher. Fortunately, I was able to withdraw him from the public education system and enroll him in private school before the liberal brainwashing program was complete and today he is a proud conservative. Unfortunately, this is not the case with most children in the U.S. The liberals are getting to them by brainwashing them into believing that conservatives are a b. They are even teach the children to disrespect the flag by not even being requiring them to stand up for the pledge of allegiance. While the public education system may have started out with good intentions, it has since morphed into a gigantic laboratory experiment for liberals. They are using our very own children against us! Should we do away with the public education system before all of our children become liberalized voting zombies?
Should they privatize education?
No. edit: @ this killed. All areas? Have you ever heard of U.C. Berkley? Its not quite as good as the top top private schools like M.I.T, but you're going to finish with 100,000 dollars less in student loans. A lot of state schools are very good, and so much cheaper than private schools for the education you're getting.
Do you think we should get rid of the compulsory education laws?
The Federal Government should be out of it for one thing, and Parents should make those choices. Government taking kids as wards of the state is an ugly thing. Thinking a good thing makes government forcing it a good thing is very wrong, it doesn't work out that way. You can't give Central Government that power without it having an ugly outcome because that kind of power will be abused. Someone will buy the politicians with the power to abuse it and use that to their own ends. A good thing forced by an oppressively strong government power soon becomes a very bad thing. It can't go any differently because that just follows human nature, there is no perfect world among people, only keeping some from getting the power to really hose over the rest. That's the big danger. Some ****** always wants to rule the whole flippin world.
What would happen if we got rid of public schools and mandatory education?
Well many kids are already lazy and a lot of parents don't have the extra money to send their children to a private school. Honestly the gap between rich and poor would become even wider and would be a lot of famine and death as the generations progress. We would probably end up as a third world country (which, go figure, most of those provide FREE PUBLIC education, provided the kids are in an area where they can get to the schools). Things that are popular here would probably pull away from the US as they would not have as much of a market here (less people to buy things, less people with money), a lot of potential jobs that provide income and work for this country would pull out and move to other countries (less educated people, less employees to work, less income coming in) .Just to put in perspective: Google, Apple, Samsung, all have warehouses here and require most people, at minimum, to have a high school education, even at entry level. Hundreds of thousands of people work at these places and many of them grew up in public schools. If they don't have the employees, they aren't going to stay here. Also, their employees are part of their sales. They buy their items, so less income, they may not sell them at all.Fast food: every place I've ever seen required a high school diploma at minimum. Between them, they have millions of employees, almost all of which are recent graduates from PUBLIC education. No employees means no people having the money to buy their food and no one to work for them. They aren't going to want to hire people that have no education, no social experience, etc. There will be no fast food and likely no major chain restaurants.Sports teams: many sport team members started out learning the sports and perfecting their skills in middle or high school. Many of them (as you can read their biographies) started with little to no money living in crappy conditions. Only after people discovered their skills were they later recruited to colleges and finally on the fields.There are many more examples but I have food sitting in front of me now, but I think you can see the picture here.
Does anyone have any opinions on private school vs. public school?
The answer depends almost entirely on where you live. Some public schools are quite good while some really stink. For example, I live in Dallas, and the Dallas Independent School District has a very bad reputation - if I had kids, I would do what I could to send them to private school. However, some of the suburban school districts are great and I'd have no problem using them - and saving the money I'd spend on a private school. I went to public schools and I turned out fine (I think...).