Why Have Public Schools At All?

[Chris]

Gee, Art, it almost sounds as if you've been talking with some of the people in the school district where my kids go to school.  We've had the good fortune of finding a public school district where misbehaviors ae punished, quickly and appropriately.  They don't teach to any standardized test, they teach the kids to think, to learn, and to understand.  The teachers all work well together, for a young principal who i had the pleasure of speaking with at great length one day while I volunteered at the school.  His belief, backed by the scores, is that if you teach kids how to think, to solve problems, and actually teach them to learn to solve the problems, the tests will take care of themselves.

And, as for public schools in general, I believe that many parents in this school district are doing the right thing when asked about the problems with the schools.  They are putting up, not shutting up.  Examples: playground equipment broken.  Dad with welding gear showed up and repaired it.  Broken computer in library, mom with IT background had it running in two days.  Bad kids hanging around playground.  I called in a couple of favors and those boys won't be back.

i know, we often come here to gripe about what's wrong in the world today.  It's nice to see a community actually doing what needs to be done to get something right for a change.

[jselvy]

An educated electorate benefits the nation. This is a truism.
Do the public schools create an educated electorate?
I think not.
There is some question as to the meaning of "educated" I believe that it includes more than just facts but also how to use facts to derive further facts. This is called reasoning.
Children are taught rote memorization for standardized tests. There is no problem solving taught.
I am a escapee of school systems in multiple states, and I was never taught reasoning. I had to teach myself. It was a long and dangerous road as the reasoning I developed produced facts contrary to what the teachers assured me was true.
I learned how to hunt teachers. How to trap them in their own arguments. I became very unpopular with the faculty.

The Federal System has proven itself inadequate in its stated mission and should thus have that mission removed from its purview. I personally think that the only influence on education that the government should have is history and moral philosophy as these subjects have no immediate measurable use and are thus apt to be ignored by a cash strapped school.

Jefferson

[Firethorn]

An educated electorate benefits the nation. This is a truism.
Do the public schools create an educated electorate?
I think not.

I'd have to agree.  When I talk about the idea of eliminating private schools, liberals tend to automatically assume that I'm going to kick all the kids from poor and middle class families out onto the street.

My response is that many middle class families manage to send their kids to private schools where the cost of education is literally one tenth that of the public school one block down the road, where the private school beats the public school on pretty much every metric.

After that, I wouldn't find it too remiss for there to be plenty of scholarships available for those that need it, made available by the government.  While one may argue that the costs of raising a child, to include education, should be funded by the parents of said child, we have many who don't value education that highly.  A child today must have a good education in order to become a productive member of our society, our nation in the future.  By providing scholarships; the government becomes an enabler rather than a provider.

[MechAg94]

How do you teach any sort of higher math without some problem solving?  Plug and chug only I guess.
I guess I had a few good teachers.  Of course, it wasn't until I got to junior college that I had a professor actually tell us that the purpose of algebra and calculus was to teach you to think. 

[lupinus]

I always hated public school and never really bennifited from it to be honest.  IMO private school or home schooling is far better and hope that my kids can have the bennifit of one of those two options.

[El Tejon]

Why?  To socialize the workers.

[ArfinGreebly]

It is my understanding that our system was adapted from the Prussian school system.

Its objective was the production of mechanically competent but compliant/conformist workers.

In other words, what El Tejon said.