[Ask the Gulch] [Ask the Gulch] Why can't we start a crusade to abolish public (govt) education? (except for military technical and police training). More chance than before, since parents have found out more about what is done in school, during Covid ?
Posted by LibertyBelle 1 year, 8 months ago to Ask the Gulch
They steal half our childhood from us, fill our heads with a lot of watered-down half truth, and condition us to be passively useful. American History, World History, Social Studies, even PE was a joke.
Computer Programming? They were always 5 years behind me. English, Math? 2 years behind me.
I refuse to be grateful to my kidnappers for feeding me bologna sandwiches while I was held in their cages.
And I'm not interested in any such "states' rights" nonsense as saying it's all right at the state level, as long as we get the Federal government out of it. It is _government_which should not be involved in it, period.
Get rid of the Dept of Education. During the last Government Budget Shutdown, if I recall over 95% of DoE personnel were deemed 'non-essential'... SO... have another Gov Budget Shutdown... and automatically fire anyone deemed 'non essential'. Bingo... they identified themselves for release...why is the Gov hiring 'non-essential' anyway?
This is an old, old battle.
Parents vs. the State.
Either way, I don't believe for a second that these edicts were designed for the good of the children.
Shut down the federal Dept of Education
Issue school vouchers for every schoolchild, including homeschoolers
This isn't that difficult.
I do disagree especially in principle as that is what I think is the only thing sound. But I am open to hearing your viewpoint if you have the time to expound.
Basically my premise is that I am a mutt with above average intelligence and it scares me to think of where I'd be without the public education I did receive.
I was lucky to live in a time when educators were more altruistic and actually were interested in imparting knowledge to young people and were actually open to disagreement. Not being from a rich family I had to depend on public education and there was a lot offered there if one took the initiative to get as much as they could from what was offered and available.
In 4th grade I had a teacher who on her own time spent hours after school to help me learn Japanese. I was on the debate team later in high school where I learned how to make a logical argument.
Bill Ayers was a criminal terrorist who is probably responsible for killing at least 1 policeman in San Francisco. Him and his wife were building bombs and mailing them out to people they wanted killed. He is also implicated as the ghost writer for Obama's autobiography.
His wife was convicted for her part in the bombings but he had connections with a parent high in tyhe department of education. And instead of serving time he somehow got a position in government education. I believe he is a major contributor to what has devolved into the current state of education.
PLEASE don't take my reply as confrontational to your views. Given the current state I completely understand why someone would feel as you do. But I had a positive experience and gained a lot. I had to apply myself to gain but I also don't know if there would have been an opportunity for me without public education as it was in the 50s and the 60s.
AS it exists now though I am completely in agreement that it has to go but the principle of educating people is not the problem it's the execution of it as a tool for changing our culture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Ay...
This article whitewashes things a lot. There are a lot of people who believe that people were killed by Ayers and his wife. Especially the case of the SF policeman. That was never resolved to any real degree of proof.
edited: added addition to a comment on the Wikipedia article stating my doubt of completeness.
He groomed and handled Barry Soetoro in Chicago
Put him in with the Activist’s crowd and VJ.
Will never happen though, as the educational establishment is way too entrenched in our political structure, and the unions would have a fit and win. Maybe a better solution is just to accept the property taxes as just another tax, reduce the number of kids we have, and send them to private schools that are available. Let the public schools die.
Abstracting both the payment of teachers and the payments BY parents to government entities has created a kind of third-party payer problem in the world of education. Instead of being responsive to students' needs and working with parents to address them, teachers are now beholden to their unions and their school principals. Because parents don't pay directly for the education of their children, they tune out of the education process and remove the single most critical element of education - themselves! And not only the children, but all of society suffers as a result!
Try going to a parent-teacher conference. Most of the public school teachers I've talked with about my children are honest, caring educators, but a majority are lucky to get 25% of the parents to attend and go over their students' progress. (Unsurprisingly, the parents who do attend are generally the parents of the better students!)
Can we fault the public education system? For perverse incentives? Yes. For radical indoctrination? Absolutely. For parental neglect? Nope. For behavioral problems in students? Nope. I'd say there's plenty wrong but not all of it can be blamed on the system.
(Disclaimer: I am a CURRENT parent of nine children currently in the "education" system. I have three in college, two in high school, and four being home schooled by my wife.)
Kids are remarkably simple to understand. They want love. They want someone to care about them when they fall down. That's typically the role of Mom. They also want security, meaning a place of safety where their needs are met. That's usually the role of Dad. And when you have both of those, children are far more likely to end up being producing members of society. And that's before you end up attaching any particular value system to the equation! Children need BOTH their biological parents - preferably in that stable arrangement historically known as Marriage.
On another point, my mother-in-law taught kindergarten for several years. She had one student who was so bad he had been sent to several different schools. (Yes - a kindergartner.) He literally disrupted class for all of the other students but because of the school district's policies - and the mother's unwillingness to address the problem - it took months to get the child's bad behavior even evaluated by the principal.
I think that the idea of making education a universal goal is noble, but stupid. There is no point in trying to have a third party force kids to do something. They either have to want it themselves or it is wasted effort. Worse, it's a major distraction to all the other students in class who want to learn. It's very telling that you don't see discipline issues in private schools.
Now with the assault weapon called Critical Theory, I read about the Critical Math Theory project, after Bill Gates admitted that Math is Racist on National Television.
Focusing on getting the right answer is racist. Having each student work alone is racist. Requiring students to show their work is racist. They want everyone to work on the exam together and the smart students will pull along the rest and everyone gets an A.
This is a direct assault on Civilization and Competence. It is not compassionate, it is evil destructive resentment, being pushed into the children by the Destructocrats. The deconstructionists, postmodernists, Communists, it's all the same damn thing.
And they think they are doing a compassionate loving thing.