Should taxpayer dollars be used to fund private education?

[footfootfoot]

I only want to address one of your many points tw, as to the matter of numbers and class size.

Before we can even begin to discuss whether 5, 15, 30, or more students per class is "better", we need to define: better for what? Better at producing math and science geniuses who will back science which argues favorably for burning coal and oil? Or for producing math and science geniuses who will come up with better ways to monitor billions of hours of cell phone conversations daily so we can keep tabs on our citizens?

Or perhaps better at producing free and creative thinkers who are able to envision a new global paradigm which doesn't rely on corporate welfare in order to artificially stimulate the economy. Or maybe it will create a better system of education to make the united states the envy of the art world, producing art, dance, and music that heal and nourish and empower people, instead of feed them into the machine of commerce making corporate rock, and "blue chip" investment paintings which have no message other than potential returns on investment.

What, exactly are our eduactional goals anyway? We need to agree on this before we can decide how many students per class we'll have.

John Taylor Gatto's premise is that our educational system is designed to create an army of factory workers who are trained to conform, be easily led, are used to being lined up, graded for performance, and to cowboy up and take it. If that's the case, then all is hunky dory with our so called eduactional system.

[Aliantha]

I can tell you exactly why Private education is better than Public in Australia, but I doubt it would have any relevance to the US because your grading system is different with regard to getting the marks to get into what you call college and we call university.

[piercehawkeye45]

footfootfoot, I think you are talking about the hidden curriculum.

[yesman065]

We have both colleges and universities here in America.

[Aliantha]

Originally Posted by yesman065

We have both colleges and universities here in America.

But don't you have to go to college before you can get into university?

We also have colleges here, but the term is used fairly loosely in a lot of cases whereas University means a degree which qualifies you to work in professional circles (mostly).

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by tw

Why did so many previous posters assumed private schools have superior education?

Oh, stop it. No one is assuming that all private schools are better than all public schools. The assumption is that all private schools are better than the absolute worst of the public schools.

Here's your "smoking gun" evidence: there is no such thing as a private school with metal detectors at the doors. By comparison, many public schools do have them. Voucher programs have never been suggested for average public schools. They are for the bottom 1% of public schools, where the problem of ignorant students is secondary to things like gang violence and drug use.

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by piercehawkeye45

footfootfoot, I think you are talking about the hidden curriculum.

thanks for that link. It lead me to this one:
http://www.noogenesis.com/game_theory/Gatto/Gatto.html

An excerpt from that page:


"Our form of compulsory schooling is an invention of the state of Massachusetts around 1850. It was resisted - sometimes with guns - by an estimated eighty per cent of the Massachusetts population, the last outpost in Barnstable on Cape Cod not surrendering its children until the 1880's when the area was seized by militia and children marched to school under guard."

Bruce spells out some of the impacts of smaller classes quite well. (As if we'd expect less)

Taken a few steps further one gets into the territory of "unschooling". Which, although it won't prepare a child for life as a cube farmer or telemarketer or call center operator, isn't a bad way to spend a good part of one's life.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Gatto is full of shit.

But keep in mind that in the United States almost nobody who reads, writes or does arithmetic gets much respect. We are a land of talkers, we pay talkers the most and admire talkers the most, and so our children talk constantly, following the public models of television and schoolteachers. It is very difficult to teach the "basics" anymore because they really aren't basic to the society we've made.

What? To be able to read, write and cipher are not the very basics of a good education? Bullshit, everything you do will be based on those abilities.

Our form of compulsory schooling is an invention of the state of Massachusetts around 1850. It was resisted - sometimes with guns - by an estimated eighty per cent of the Massachusetts population, the last outpost in Barnstable on Cape Cod not surrendering its children until the 1880's when the area was seized by militia and children marched to school under guard.

While he may be technically right he distorts the picture.
Prior to this, the town owned schools taught the three Rs and about life, both good and evil, by teaching Protestant Christian Bible lessons. Why not, that's what the all were.

In 1848, the city marshall of Boston was ordered to find out how many truants and vagrants there were in Boston. He found 1,066 children between the ages of 6 and 16 who were either vagrant or truant Considering the fact that in 1849 the total enrollment in Boston's public schools was 20,589, the truants amounted to about 5%. In other words, without compulsory attendance laws, 95% of the city's children were attending school.

That 5% were the influx(1840s) of Irish Catholic kids whose families didn't want the kids subject to protestant schools even after the religious part had been removed. They also, being poor immigrants, wanted the kids out hustling to help the family survive. The rest of the state was more like the immigrants, in they expected by their work ethic, every member of the family to be contributing. Life wasn't easy for the majority of the New England rock farmers, and spending money for a school and teacher to take the kids away from their chores didn't settle well....even for 90 days a year.

The idea that every kid be given a free education regardless of social/financial status, is one of the best things that happened in America.

Over the years the school year has doubled, the mandatory attendance age has climbed and the schools have become daycare until you can ship the off to college...or war. Why? How did this happen?

The parents, in pursuit of the American dream, lost interest in raising their children. They sub-contracted to teachers, in place of wet nurses and nannies, and pretended their lives were enriched.... pretended they were rich.

But they were really poorer.

[yesman065]

No, Ali you don't. Graduates from both colleges & universities are also able to work in professional circles.

[Aliantha]

Hmmm...interesting. So when you go to college you get a diploma and a university gets you a degree? Or is it different?

[xoxoxoBruce]

A University is a group of Colleges banded together under one name and usually, except the older, urban ones have the Colleges gathered on a large campus.

[Aliantha]

Well that's pretty much the same as it is here then. Different schools housed in the same university. Husband lectures in environmental management in the school of geography, architecture and planning, but it's part of the University of Qld. If you do hubby's course you end up with Bem which is a Bachelor of Environmental Management, not to be confused with Environmental science which is in the science school.

[piercehawkeye45]

The University of Minnesota calls their individual schools "colleges"
College of Liberal Arts, etc.

I was a teacher.
One of the things we make a priority is that my son goes to private school, period.
We get tax breaks for that and anyone who sends their kids to private school should.
He goes to an amazing Episcopalian school.
He begins Spanish and Mandarin, as well as math in Kindergarten.
I am an atheist.

[Ibby]

Mandarin?

Hao bang!