# Private school for your kids = you are a bad person...



## billc (Aug 31, 2013)

Apparently, if you take money that you are allowed to keep after the government extracts it's pound of flesh, and use it to send your kids to a private school so they can get...you know...educated, you are a bad person...

http://www.slate.com/articles/doubl...ly_bad_people_send_their_kids_to_private.html



> You are a bad person if you send your children to private school. Not bad like _murderer_ bad&#8212;but bad like _ruining-one-of-our-nation&#8217;s-most-essential-institutions-in-order-to-get-what&#8217;s-best-for-your-kid_ bad. So, pretty bad.
> 
> I am not an education policy wonk: I&#8217;m just judgmental. But it seems to me that if every single parent sent every single child to public school, public schools would improve. This would not happen immediately. It could take generations. Your children and grandchildren might get mediocre educations in the meantime, but it will be worth it, for the eventual common good. (Yes, rich people might cluster. But rich people will always find a way to game the system: That shouldn&#8217;t be an argument against an all-in approach to public education any more than it is a case against single-payer health care.)



What a moron...

Larry correia takes this article apart...

http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2013/08/30/fisking-slate-over-public-schools/



> *Apparently. But please, Allison, educate us poor knuckle draggers why we should put the future of failing liberal institutions based on outdated philosophies dating back to the industrial revolution over the welfare of our children.
> *
> _I am not an education policy wonk: I&#8217;m just judgmental.
> _
> ...





> _That shouldn&#8217;t be an argument against an all-in approach to public education any more than it is a case against single-payer health care.)
> _
> *Well, obviously Allison is in favor of single-payer health care (in the same essay where she talks about another government run system being hopelessly broken) because this time it will totally be better.
> *
> ...


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## Sukerkin (Aug 31, 2013)

Though I agree with the basic point, why, in the American arena at least, is it not possible to find sources that are less smeared with the unpleasant froth of over-invested-political-monotheism?  

It could be an interesting discourse on the nature of education and the effects of wealth/class disparity in a theoretically free social structure but that is impossible if you start it off with another Libtard semi-rant.


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## billc (Aug 31, 2013)

The basic tone of the article warrants Correia's response...you are a bad person if you send your kids to private school...really?  The public schools are really bad...and 40% of public school teachers send their kids to private schools, as do all the politicians who run public education...but if you take extra money from what you earn working everyday of your life...and it is extra money because the politicians extract taxes from you to fund the public school system wether your kids attend or not...you are a bad person...really?  And that attitude doesn't deserve some hard comments?



> It could be an interesting discourse on the nature of education and the effects of wealth/class disparity in a theoretically free social structure but that is impossible if you start it off with another Libtard semi-rant.



Really?  Just start discussing the article the way you want Sukerkin, you know I have no problems with what people post on my threads...unless they use personal attacks or insults...so lead the discussion in any direction you want...this is just a starting point...make it what you will...


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## Sukerkin (Aug 31, 2013)

I agree with the basic premise, which might surprise you, but, for me at least, a response to a bad article shouldn't be an equally bad one.  It sets an awful tone to begin a discourse on and it colours everyones responses accordingly.  

I, in all seriousness suggest, that if debating political points is where you get your internet fun from then why not have a think about the issues and write an OP based on those, inviting others to contribute in agreement or otherwise?  I am sure you'd find your threads more of a source of entertainment and information than the slanging matches that they, sadly, usually end up being.

The short paragraph you wrote above, for example, told me more about what you thought on the matter and encouraged me to respond more readily than the combative stuff linked in the OP.

If the public schools are so awful, surely the answer is to improve the public schools?  An educated work-force is the source of all wealth in an economy and the (in practise) trend we have had on both sides of the Pond towards the creation of a permanent underclass is a death knell for our economic and political futures.  

Likewise, an educated elite, where your social position is determined by what school you went to, is a very bad thing for a society if there are no counterbalances to it.  That is doubly so if access to the 'better' system is gated by wealth and social position as it ossifies the social structure - like all inbreeding, that too is a very bad thing.


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## billc (Aug 31, 2013)

One of the major problems in our school system here in the states is the power relationship between the teacher's unions and politicians.  The teacher's unions contribute vast sums of money to the democrat party, and those politicians prevent real reforms of the education system.  Most people here in the states support some form of voucher program.  These would allow poor parents the ability to take their allotment of education tax dollars to the school they feel would best educate their children creating strong incentives for the public schools to improve...or lose money...which threatens the teachers and so the teachers unions use their power to fight vouchers.  Even when you exclude religious schools from the voucher option, which is dumb since federal dollars already go to religious colleges, and only propose to allow poor parents to choose between the various public schools to send their kids to, the unions use their power to kill it.

For example...Washington D.C. had a successful voucher program...the parents and kids loved it and these kids were actually able to go to the school where the President and other politicians send their kids, in particular the Sidwell Friends school...When obama became President...he ended the voucher program because the teacher's unions hated the program.  So now those kids in D.C., where the public schools are horrendous, are now no longer able to use vouchers to get a good education.  

This slate article is important because it is one of the "thousand cuts," that that side of the political arena uses to smear opponents.   I have posted about this elsewhere, where constant, little attacks, made against their opponents eventually permeates the culture and helps set the rules of engagement on these issues in the political arena.  This tone in this article will eventually be picked up by hollywood and by other journalists...eventually you will see television shows and movies that insinuate this idea into their stories, and journalists will write more articles saying you are bad if you send your kids to private schools...and the meme will be created that it isn't just a choice to send your kids to private schools, but if you do send your kids to private schools you are the worst sort of bad person.  This is how the battle is eventually lost and why this tactic needs to be dealt with decisively when it is used.

Does this mean that people will stop sending their kids to private schools, of course not.  That is the best way to educate your kids after all.  It will, however, give the opposition to school reform another weapon to brow beat school reformers with and allow them to undermine the school reform argument...

For example...a politician wants to make a reform that the teacher's union doesn't like...the press, hollywood entertainers and educators say that all he wants to do is support private schools for the rich at the expense of poor inner city kids...and because the meme is already out their that people who send their kids to private schools are actually bad, mean people, because they send their kids to private schools, this reformer will already be fighting an uphill battle for change before he even gets started...


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## billc (Aug 31, 2013)

I encountered this sort of argument before when I was in college.  There was a guy in one of my classes who believed that middle class white people moved to the suburbs because they wanted to keep minorities from getting a good education...he really believed this.  There was a woman in our group who was returning to school after her kids had gotten old enough to free up her time, so I turned to her and asked her, " Did you move to the suburbs and enroll your kids in a suburban school so minority kids wouldn't get a good education?"  She had this shocked look on her face, and said the reason they put their kids in the school where they were is because they were good schools, and it had nothing to do with minority kids or inner city schools...it had never entered her mind to even think that way.  The problem was this guy isn't the only moron who thinks the way he did.  This slate column is just another example of this way of thinking.

Here is an article on the ending of the voucher program in D.C.

http://washington.cbslocal.com/2012/02/14/obama-budget-would-end-d-c-school-vouchers/



> *WASHINGTON (CBSDC/AP)* &#8212; President Barack Obama&#8217;s budget proposal includes no new funding for a private school voucher program for D.C. students​
> 
> ​.
> The nation&#8217;s capital is the only jurisdiction where federal tax dollars are used to subsidize private-school tuition. Needy students can receive up to $12,000 a year to attend private schools​
> ...


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## billc (Aug 31, 2013)

Here is a look at the slate piece from the Wall Street Journal...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324463604579043031360151914.html



> The attention-grabbing "bad person" formulation is presumably facetious, but the underlying argument--that all parents ought to enroll their children in public schools--is not. Conservatives frequently accuse elite liberals, including President Obama and his most recent Democratic predecessor, of hypocrisy for proclaiming their devotion to public education while shielding their own children from it. Benedikt's argument is consistent with that criticism.
> But that is not to say that it is logically sound.





> If Benedikt's argument is purely a matter of numbers, it is wholly implausible. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. public-school enrollment in prekindergarten through 12th grade was 49.4 million in 2009. Private-school enrollment was 5.5 million. There is no reason to think that public schools would be any better if only their enrollment grew by 11%. In fact, public-school enrollment increased by some 25% between 1985 and 2009 without, so far as we are aware, any of the kind of generational improvement Benedikt expects. (Private school enrollment declined during the same period, but by fewer than 100,000 students--so that most of the change was owing to demographics.)





> The assumption behind treating education as a public good is that in general, educating children makes them more successful adults, and successful people are more valuable to society than unsuccessful ones. If that is true, then consigning your child to a mediocre education is harmful to the common good, because it reduces his likelihood of success--which can mean everything from becoming a gainfully employed taxpayer to discovering a cure for cancer.


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## Sukerkin (Aug 31, 2013)

Is it not something of a case of seeing one 'meme' as being false and one true?  

In your post #5 above you cogently outlined a problem that, to an outsiders ear, sounds rather on the paranoid side i.e. that there is a nationwide media conspiracy to manipulate the minds of all into believing that improving the education system is bad.  

In post#6 you outline and dismiss an equally paranoid line of reasoning that there is a conspiracy to lock out those below the middle classes from getting a good education.

Now is either true or are neither true?

I think we need some evidence either way - is there a pool of data we can dig into to determine if there are any patterns to be observed?  Or are we stuck with having to take the word of internet pundits who say they interpret the evidence for us?  There must be some reliable sources we can look at somewhere?  I know it is likely to be hard in America because of the fragmentation of things between the individual States and the Federal parts of the government; it's easier (tho still not easy) over here because the Civil Service tends to have overwatch on everything and that leads to greater cohesion.


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## billc (Aug 31, 2013)

> In your post #5 above you cogently outlined a problem that, to an outsiders ear, sounds rather on the paranoid side i.e. that there is a nationwide media conspiracy to manipulate the minds of all into believing that improving the education system is bad.



Hmmm...well, democrats, the media and entertainment think that school vouchers are bad, you can look at how the democrats oppose them through legislation and how journalists cover the stories of vouchers, and then look at entertainers when they talk about education...all three will support even more spending on the public school system even when more spending doesn't lead to better grades or outcomes.

It is less a conspiracy rather than a way of thinking that belongs to people who view central control of education as a good thing vs. people who think that more control should be allowed at the local and state level.

As to post #6...would you or anyone you know put kids into private school specifically to keep minorities from getting a good education?  However, there is a monetary incentive for teacher's unions and democrat politicians to keep kids in public schools.  The teacher's unions know that many private schools are non-union,  which means they don't get dues from those teachers.  The democrat politicians get vast sums of money from teachers thru their union dues...so less dues, means less power to the unions and less money to democrat politicians.

There are some conservatives who oppose vouchers...mainly because they don't want the vouchers to be used by the government to use them as a way to get their hooks into the private schools...government money means government strings...but the fiercest opponents of vouchers are the democrats and their teacher union allies.


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## Sukerkin (Aug 31, 2013)

Obviously you are immersed in your culture and I am not, so I can't comment on what you are saying about vouchers and their treatment in the wider media.  Perhaps some others here on MT, the members are mostly American after all, can spread the net a bit wider for us and provide supporting or countervailing viewpoints?

I concur that the second 'conspiracy' is more simple to dismiss as you can put yourself in the shoes of people making such a choice.  I can see people not wanting to put their kids in low achieving schools in high crime neighbourhoods and so on and that might give the impression of a conscious conspiracy when in fact is an effect of circumstances rather than an affecter of circumstance.


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## billc (Aug 31, 2013)

A look at surveys on school vouchers...

http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2000/07/01/polls-show-majority-support-vouchers



> Although the national teacher unions and their state affiliates are adamantly opposed to school vouchers, their opposition does not appear to reflect the wishes of union members or their families. The poll showed that 57 percent of respondents who have a teacher in their immediate family support vouchers--virtually the same margin (58 percent) as respondents with no teacher in the family.
> 
> While support for vouchers was strong (64 percent) among respondents who described themselves as conservatives, a significant majority of self-described liberals also favored vouchers (57 percent). Minority respondents favored vouchers more than white respondents by a margin of 64 to 58 percent. Respondents with children favored vouchers more than non-parents by a margin of 61 to 58 percent.
> 
> ...





> Overall, respondents had a very favorable attitude toward school choice and its likely effect on education. Sixty-eight percent agreed that giving parents choice forces schools to be accountable to their customers and would therefore improve the quality of education. Sixty-five percent agreed that forcing schools to compete for students would give them an incentive to be more cost-effective and more efficient.


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## billc (Aug 31, 2013)

The political side of the voucher fight...the House, controlled by republicans, wants to fund vouchers for D.C. kids, the democrats oppose it...

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/mar/30/house-votes-to-restart-dc-school-vouchers/



> The House passed a measure Wednesday to revive a school-voucher program for the District of Columbia despite opposition from the mayor, the District&#8217;s congressional delegate, teachers and the White House.
> The move also sets up a key test for the administration, as House Republican leaders have hinted that they may go along with President Obama&#8217;s planned overhaul of the No Child Left Behind Act &#8212; an education​
> 
> ​ reform law signed by President George W. Bush &#8212; if the White House accepts the voucher bill.



Hmmm...I thought the Republicans weren't willing to compromise...hmmm...perhaps that is a false meme as well...


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## billc (Aug 31, 2013)

As to the success of the D.C. program before it was stopped...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/22/AR2010062204487.html



> The final report on the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program was released Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Education's Institute for Education Sciences. Although there was no conclusive evidence that the program affected student test scores, researchers found important benefits in graduation rates and parental satisfaction. The graduation rate for students who were offered scholarships was 82 percent, compared with 70 percent for those not in the program. Few things are more critical to future success than graduation, so it's hard to discount the difference that vouchers made for the low-income students participating in the program.





> More than 3,700 students -- most of them black or Hispanic -- have been awarded scholarships, which provide up to $7,500 for private-school tuition, since the program's start in 2004. Students currently enrolled, an estimated 1,300, will be allowed to continue until they graduate from high school. But for reasons that have more to do with opposition from teachers unions than what's good for children, no new students are being accepted. Education Secretary Arne Duncan last year signaled the program's demise by rescinding scholarships already offered, and congressional Democrats refused to reauthorize the program.


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## granfire (Aug 31, 2013)

I am not reading bill's exploits...

Alas: bad schools take more than one set of parents to fix them.
Bad schools are bad because the majority of parents don't give a hoot.
Yes, seen one of those from the inside. When there are 500 kids in the school and only 5 parents show up (as in people, not pairs, and always the same) you can't make head waves.
When half of the students come from the Ghetto, the other half from the poor part of town (that's why the ghetto is there in the first place) you can't make head waves.

So you have a downward spiral, because who wants to send their kid to a ghetto school if they can avoid it. 
Here we have the fantastic minority clause...I could have send my kid to the other school in the neighborhood, because he was one of the few pale faces in class....we ended up moving his 3rd year, so there was not much lost.
Many people who could afford it send their kids to private school so they did not have to encounter the variety in demographics. 

Budget cuts make schools bad, and policy: Leave no kid behind. Nuff said.
The money is poured into bringing the underachievers up, burying the teachers under paperwork, while at the same time money for the smart kids is being cut.
It's impossible to have a smart kid in a bad school. 
Screw the school, it's not my job to fix it. My job is to give my kid the best start he can have into life. 
Being bored to tears and losing interest in learning is not the way to go. 


Not to mention the article was poorly written - what else is new.
And the author has no clue how educational systems work.


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## Big Don (Aug 31, 2013)

granfire said:


> I am not reading bill's exploits...


Because you'd rather let your personal prejudices take over than listen to someone you don't like





> Alas: bad schools take more than one set of parents to fix them.
> Bad schools are bad because the majority of parents don't give a hoot.


 That and the fact that teacher's unions, classified employees unions, etc have public schools hamstrung





> Yes, seen one of those from the inside. When there are 500 kids in the school and only 5 parents show up (as in people, not pairs, and always the same) you can't make head waves.
> When half of the students come from the Ghetto, the other half from the poor part of town (that's why the ghetto is there in the first place) you can't make head waves.
> 
> So you have a downward spiral, because who wants to send their kid to a ghetto school if they can avoid it.
> ...


 Of course it had nothing to do with private school providing a better education, it was all because of RACISM...





> Budget cuts make schools bad, and policy: Leave no kid behind. Nuff said.
> The money is poured into bringing the underachievers up, burying the teachers under paperwork, while at the same time money for the smart kids is being cut.
> It's impossible to have a smart kid in a bad school.
> Screw the school, it's not my job to fix it. My job is to give my kid the best start he can have into life.
> ...


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## Tgace (Aug 31, 2013)

Its my responsibility to do the best for MY children....not sacrifice their education for the "greater good" down the road. What a load of ****...I'm wagering she's childless.

That sort of ******** reasoning is part of the reason why my ancestors left "The Old World". 

Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk 2


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## granfire (Aug 31, 2013)

Big Don said:


> Because you'd rather let your personal prejudices take over than listen to someone you don't like


I don't have time to wade through his copy pasta to find the one pearl of wisdom he has (admittedly) once in a blue moon. 
However, that was not the point.



> That and the fact that teacher's unions, classified employees unions, etc have public schools hamstrung


Your bias is showing. not all areas are created equal, and heaven forbid, unions actually do cover the teacher's behinds. The problems in the system are many fold, the unions are not the biggest problem - not everywhere. 



> Of course it had nothing to do with private school providing a better education, it was all because of RACISM...


No need to caps lock the word. 
While on the one hand it is true, on the other hand it's not:
No doubt racism had the major role in the whole private school boom around here.
But it has perpetuated the whole thing of the caring parents collecting their efforts in one school, the others in the public schools. 

And it takes an herculean effort now to turn the rudder around. 
And, drum roll please, the caring 'minority' parents also send their children to private school over even good public schools. 

And dagnabbit, the property owners are paying for the schools, whether or not they send the kids to the school in the district.....


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## Tgace (Aug 31, 2013)

granfire said:


> And dagnabbit, the property owners are paying for the schools, whether or not they send the kids to the school in the district.....



Exactly.

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## granfire (Aug 31, 2013)

One more thing:
For the love of Pete, quit harping on how evil teachers and their unions are!

I have found the most involved and caring teachers in the lower end schools, hamstringed by bureaucracy, willing to go the extra mile (and a half), spending _their own money_ on what the budget did not provide, or finding outside resources to supplement their teaching!

In the better schools?
It's like pulling teeth to get communications going....


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## Steve (Aug 31, 2013)

The new tactic seems to be to find an extreme article that misrepresents one side and then counter that with an extreme article that misrepresents the other side. 

Suk, let me assure you tht most Americans don't have a problem with either public or private schools.  They understand that both have strengths and weaknesses.

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## billc (Aug 31, 2013)

> Suk, let me assure you tht most Americans don't have a problem with either public or private schools. They understand that both have strengths and weaknesses.



You obviously don't live in Chicago...where the graduation rate for high school last year was just 60%(?)...and they just closed a whole bunch of schools and now they have designated "safe routes," to the new schools because they go through gang infested areas...

here is the graduation rate...

http://www.cps.edu/News/Press_releases/Pages/06_11_2012_PR1.aspx



> June 9, 2012
> 
> Chicago Public Schools (CPS) CEO Jean-Claude Brizard today announced that the current school year will mark the highest recorded graduation rate for the District, which is projected at 60.6 percent. The District has seen steady increases in graduation rates over the past five years.



60.6%...and they are happy with that...

Current rate...

http://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20130528/chicago/cps-expects-highest-graduation-rate-ever



> In a tumultuous school year that saw teachers strike and Chicago Public Schools come under fire for shuttering 50 schools, CPS says it has something positive to report: a record-high graduation rate.
> The school system expects 63 percent of high school seniors to graduate this year, up from 61 percent in 2012 and 59 percent in the 2010-2011 school year.
> A decade ago, the graduation rate was 44 percent, according to CPS.



Keep in mind...we aren't even talking about the quality of education the students who manage to graduate actually have...most end up needing remedial classes for basic material if they get accepted into a college...

And the vast amounts of money public education takes out of the pockets of taxpayers for a 63% graduation rate...think of the wasted lives and the diminished outcomes of these children...

Also keep in mind the gall of these educators who went on strike and demanded a pay increase...with only 63% of the children graduating from high school...tell me, if you are at a job and you only have a 63% success rate at what you do or are only 63% productive in your job...how long would you have that job...and would you expect a raise...?


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## Steve (Aug 31, 2013)

I went to a private school where the teachers weren't even required to be licensed.  That's the way it goes in most states. 

There are good public schools and bad ones.  But, contrary to the mistaken beliefs of some. There re good private schools and also bad ones, too.

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## billc (Aug 31, 2013)

> I went to a private school where the teachers weren't even required to be licensed.



And all of the teachers in the chicago public schools have teaching degrees if not masters degrees...and again...a 63% graduation rate from high school...and that doesn't account for the quality of students that do graduate...and have to take remedial classes when they get into college...

I agree there are good and bad private and public schools...but you are not a bad person if you put your kids in the best school possible, and saying people are bad because they put their kids in private schools is dumb...don't you agree?


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## Steve (Aug 31, 2013)

billc said:


> And all of the teachers in the chicago public schools have teaching degrees if not masters degrees...and again...a 63% graduation rate from high school...and that doesn't account for the quality of students that do graduate...and have to take remedial classes when they get into college...
> 
> I agree there are good and bad private and public schools...but you are not a bad person if you put your kids in the best school possible, and saying people are bad because they put their kids in private schools is dumb...don't you agree?



Sure.  Don't you?


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## elder999 (Sep 3, 2013)

But, but, bill-what about Matt Damon?

I mean, doesn't *he* send his kids to private schools?

And didn't you post about what a bad person he was for doing so?



billc said:


> Matt Damon promotes public school teacher unions, and the public school system,...and then sends his kids to private school....that is what makes Damon a jerk...





I'm confused.....


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## Makalakumu (Sep 3, 2013)

There is literally so much misunderstanding packed into the original Slate article, it would take hours to unpack it and air it out.  I wish more people would want to know about the history of how this institution developed in American and in other countries around the world.  I've taken a fairly deep look at the American system and am currently looking into the British/Colonial system based on some professional interests of mine.  

Anyway, what it all comes down to is that public education is a tool of State power.  The basic system we use now arose in Prussia and spread throughout Europe and moved overseas to America and Asia.  The assumptions behind public education are that all children need to be forced into schools six basic fundamental can be inflicted upon them.  The six functions are:

1) The adaptive function (schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority the bells, the trivial rules, and rewards and punishments are nothing more than a Pavlovian training method designed to accustom students to a life of top down instruction).

2) The integrating function (this might well be called "the conformity function," because its intention is to make children as alike as possible.  Standardized testing is the epitome of this function.  Every unit will be strictly controlled for quality like a McDonald&#8217;s cheeseburger).

3) The diagnostic and directive function (school is meant to determine each student's proper social role.  The numbers and letters that we assign to bits of knowledge and acts of behavior are to be used to determine a student&#8217;s future despite the assumptions that went into their assignation).

4) The differentiating function (once their social role has been "diagnosed," children are to be sorted by role and trained only so far as their destination in the social machine merits - and not one step further.  Development of the mind beyond that which is required for basic instruction in social roles is not only waste of resources, it is dangerous for social order).

5) The selective function (schools are meant to tag students with poor grades, remedial placement, and other diagnoses in order to identify the &#8220;unfit&#8221; for further intervention.  This is a eugenics program as defined by Sir Francis Galton, the father of eugenics and whose ideas spawned a program that was funded in the United States by John D. Rockefeller.  We used to direct these &#8220;tagged&#8221; individuals into forced sterilization programs, now we cram them full of pharmaceuticals and deny them opportunities for social advancement.

6) The _propaedeutic _function (the societal system implied by these rules will require an elite group of caretakers.  School trains students for managers.  The etymology of the word pedagogy comes from the Greek word _paidagogos_, who were a class of slaves whose responsibility it was to guide students through the lessons of the masters.  Students will learn fixed habits of reaction to authority, how to shift from one person giving instruction to another, and how to obey without question and without the weight of troubling ethics).

Even private schools will have a difficult time not structuring their environment so that these six functions are avoided.  This is because of the accreditation process that most private schools need to pass so that they can get the fancy paper and prove to "educational policy wonks" that their school is an actual "school" (in other words, that it meets the above criteria).

There is a good chance that this author knows nothing about this.  I would love to have a 30 minute discussion with her so see what she thinks.

Anyway, so she wants to have a moral change where more parents stop sending their kids to private school and put them into public school, but she doesn't understand that the basic structure of schooling itself is preserved in both public and (most) private schools.  Still, I get the general idea of what she is saying, even if it completely lacks any historical context and is only repeating the untried assumption she was taught in her own admittedly mediocre schooling.  

She would like to have parents invest more of their time and money into the public schools so that all children can be "lifted up" and the whole of society will be improved.  A question I would like to ask is who exactly are improving the society for?  



> &#8220;In our dreams, people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present educational conventions [intellectual and character education] fade from our minds, and unhampered by tradition, we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or men of science. We have not to raise up from among them authors, educators, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we have ample supply. The task we set before ourselves is very simple...we will organize children...and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way.&#8221;



Oh yes, my Liberal Slate writer, aren't you a tool.


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## granfire (Sep 3, 2013)

The writer was likely a product of public schools...


(More clearly: If you can't string together two comprehensive intelligent sentences, you should not write about education...)


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