Education Thread: Why are the youth disrespectful?

[Infinite Harmony]

I believe there is still hope for public education. There needs to be major changes such as not relying on standardized testing and not lowering student standards and increasing funding so we can have smaller class sizes. Schools need better resources also and they shouldn't be forced to use textbooks from the 90s.

Can any parent teach? Maybe, should they? Probably not.

The average amount spent on education per child per year in the US is about $10 500, and trending upward. This is about $210 000 per an (average sized) classroom of 20, taught by one teacher. Despite massive real (i.e. adjusted for inflation) increases in funding since the 1970's and earlier, results have not improved by any legitimate measure I have heard of since then.

In short, this is a huge amount of resources devoted to a system with very poor results relative to said resources. Clearly something with this model is seriously wrong, and it seems to me that funding is not the main prime issue here.


Can parents teach? It seems that many of them can, and can do so significantly better than public schools do. See:

http://hslda.org/docs/nche/000000/00000017.asp

Standardized test results for 16,000 home educated children, grades K-12, were analyzed in 1994 by researcher Dr. Brian Ray. He found the nationwide grand mean in reading for homeschoolers was at the 79th percentile; for language and math, the 73rd percentile. This ranking means home-educated students performed better than approximately 77% of the sample population on whom the test was normed. Nearly 80% of homeschooled children achieved individual scores above the national average and 54.7% of the 16,000 homeschoolers achieved individual scores in the top quarter of the population, more than double the number of conventional school students who score in the top quarter.


Also see this presentation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwIyy1Fi-4Q by one student of "unschooling", essentially a system where children are completely self-directed in their learning, in a home environment. While the presenter's parents were academics, the fact that she was about 2 years above her grade level in grade 9 or so despite no involvement with formal education systems shows that children can do extremely well without structured learning in certain environments.



As for this idea that John Taylor Gatto is some nefarious "hidden agenda" agent, I have seen no evidence to support this claim. On the other hand, he claims to have studied the history of modern schooling systems in great depth and breadth, (see http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm), and seems to make a strong case that there is a hidden agenda (not necessarily understood by many educators) behind modern school systems.

If there is any good evidence that proves that a) John Taylor Gatto has some dangerous hidden agenda, and/or b) that his research and associated conclusions in his book (above) are fatally flawed, I would like to see it so I might factor it into my thinking. If no good evidence to support these claim exists, I hope that posters here will cease making comments which could be considered slanderous against someone who appears to have great knowledge, skill, and dedication regarding the teaching of young people in the US and elsewhere.

[Rejaina]

I believe there is still hope for public education. There needs to be major changes such as not relying on standardized testing and not lowering student standards and increasing funding so we can have smaller class sizes. Schools need better resources also and they shouldn't be forced to use textbooks from the 90s.

Can any parent teach? Maybe, should they? Probably not.

The average amount spent on education per child per year in the US is about $10 500, and trending upward. This is about $210 000 per an (average sized) classroom of 20, taught by one teacher. Despite massive real (i.e. adjusted for inflation) increases in funding since the 1970's and earlier, results have not improved by any legitimate measure I have heard of since then.

In short, this is a huge amount of resources devoted to a system with very poor results relative to said resources. Clearly something with this model is seriously wrong, and it seems to me that funding is not the main prime issue here.


Can parents teach? It seems that many of them can, and can do so significantly better than public schools do. See:

http://hslda.org/docs/nche/000000/00000017.asp

Standardized test results for 16,000 home educated children, grades K-12, were analyzed in 1994 by researcher Dr. Brian Ray. He found the nationwide grand mean in reading for homeschoolers was at the 79th percentile; for language and math, the 73rd percentile. This ranking means home-educated students performed better than approximately 77% of the sample population on whom the test was normed. Nearly 80% of homeschooled children achieved individual scores above the national average and 54.7% of the 16,000 homeschoolers achieved individual scores in the top quarter of the population, more than double the number of conventional school students who score in the top quarter.


Also see this presentation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwIyy1Fi-4Q by one student of "unschooling", essentially a system where children are completely self-directed in their learning, in a home environment. While the presenter's parents were academics, the fact that she was about 2 years above her grade level in grade 9 or so despite no involvement with formal education systems shows that children can do extremely well without structured learning in certain environments.



As for this idea that John Taylor Gatto is some nefarious "hidden agenda" agent, I have seen no evidence to support this claim. On the other hand, he claims to have studied the history of modern schooling systems in great depth and breadth, (see http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm), and seems to make a strong case that there is a hidden agenda (not necessarily understood by many educators) behind modern school systems.

If there is any good evidence that proves that a) John Taylor Gatto has some dangerous hidden agenda, and/or b) that his research and associated conclusions in his book (above) are fatally flawed, I would like to see it so I might factor it into my thinking. If no good evidence to support these claim exists, I hope that posters here will cease making comments which could be considered slanderous against someone who appears to have great knowledge, skill, and dedication regarding the teaching of young people in the US and elsewhere.

huge please they just cut my schools funding again

[Dazchan]

Constrantly repeating something does not make it true.

Of course, to use your logic, LIFE ITSELF is a prison.

Well first, I implore you to tell me how I am incorrect in calling public schooling a prison.

Because you don't know what the word means.

Noun prison (countable and uncountable; plural prisons)

1. A place of long-term confinement for those convicted of serious crimes.
The cold stone walls of the prison had stood for over a century.
2. (uncountable) Confinement in a prison.
Prison was a harrowing experience for him.
3. (colloquial) Any restrictive environment, such as a harsh academy or home.
The academy was a prison for many of its students because of its strict teachers.

[ZombieRothbard]

Well first, I implore you to tell me how I am incorrect in calling public schooling a prison.

Because you don't know what the word means.

Noun prison (countable and uncountable; plural prisons)

1. A place of long-term confinement for those convicted of serious crimes.
The cold stone walls of the prison had stood for over a century.
2. (uncountable) Confinement in a prison.
Prison was a harrowing experience for him.
3. (colloquial) Any restrictive environment, such as a harsh academy or home.
The academy was a prison for many of its students because of its strict teachers.

That definition is ridiculous. What about people in prison who aren't there long term for crimes that aren't very serious? Are they not in a prison now?

[NERVUN]

I believe there is still hope for public education. There needs to be major changes such as not relying on standardized testing and not lowering student standards and increasing funding so we can have smaller class sizes. Schools need better resources also and they shouldn't be forced to use textbooks from the 90s.

Can any parent teach? Maybe, should they? Probably not.

The average amount spent on education per child per year in the US is about $10 500, and trending upward. This is about $210 000 per an (average sized) classroom of 20, taught by one teacher. Despite massive real (i.e. adjusted for inflation) increases in funding since the 1970's and earlier, results have not improved by any legitimate measure I have heard of since then.

In short, this is a huge amount of resources devoted to a system with very poor results relative to said resources. Clearly something with this model is seriously wrong, and it seems to me that funding is not the main prime issue here.


Can parents teach? It seems that many of them can, and can do so significantly better than public schools do. See:

http://hslda.org/docs/nche/000000/00000017.asp

Standardized test results for 16,000 home educated children, grades K-12, were analyzed in 1994 by researcher Dr. Brian Ray. He found the nationwide grand mean in reading for homeschoolers was at the 79th percentile; for language and math, the 73rd percentile. This ranking means home-educated students performed better than approximately 77% of the sample population on whom the test was normed. Nearly 80% of homeschooled children achieved individual scores above the national average and 54.7% of the 16,000 homeschoolers achieved individual scores in the top quarter of the population, more than double the number of conventional school students who score in the top quarter.

Besides the problem of self-reporting, there's another issue here: current research shows that, after the sophomore year in college, there's no difference between homeschool, private school, or public school student in college. None. So that vaulted leg up... doesn't show.

As for this idea that John Taylor Gatto is some nefarious "hidden agenda" agent, I have seen no evidence to support this claim. On the other hand, he claims to have studied the history of modern schooling systems in great depth and breadth, (see http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm), and seems to make a strong case that there is a hidden agenda (not necessarily understood by many educators) behind modern school systems.

If there is any good evidence that proves that a) John Taylor Gatto has some dangerous hidden agenda, and/or b) that his research and associated conclusions in his book (above) are fatally flawed, I would like to see it so I might factor it into my thinking. If no good evidence to support these claim exists, I hope that posters here will cease making comments which could be considered slanderous against someone who appears to have great knowledge, skill, and dedication regarding the teaching of young people in the US and elsewhere.

He has an agenda, that does not mean nefarious or hidden. His agenda is right out in the open, and here, since you ignored it the last time: http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/testtoday.htm

And sir, YOU have no place to claim slander after trying to state the same for all public school teachers. John Gatto does not play NS, teachers do.

[-St George]

Can parents teach? It seems that many of them can, and can do so significantly better than public schools do. See:

http://hslda.org/docs/nche/000000/00000017.asp

Standardized test results for 16,000 home educated children, grades K-12, were analyzed in 1994 by researcher Dr. Brian Ray. He found the nationwide grand mean in reading for homeschoolers was at the 79th percentile; for language and math, the 73rd percentile. This ranking means home-educated students performed better than approximately 77% of the sample population on whom the test was normed. Nearly 80% of homeschooled children achieved individual scores above the national average and 54.7% of the 16,000 homeschoolers achieved individual scores in the top quarter of the population, more than double the number of conventional school students who score in the top quarter.

Herp One-to-one teaching works better than classes of 30+.

News at 11. Fake surprise at 11.03.

[Trotskylvania]

Can parents teach? It seems that many of them can, and can do so significantly better than public schools do. See:

http://hslda.org/docs/nche/000000/00000017.asp

Standardized test results for 16,000 home educated children, grades K-12, were analyzed in 1994 by researcher Dr. Brian Ray. He found the nationwide grand mean in reading for homeschoolers was at the 79th percentile; for language and math, the 73rd percentile. This ranking means home-educated students performed better than approximately 77% of the sample population on whom the test was normed. Nearly 80% of homeschooled children achieved individual scores above the national average and 54.7% of the 16,000 homeschoolers achieved individual scores in the top quarter of the population, more than double the number of conventional school students who score in the top quarter.

Herp One-to-one teaching works better than classes of 30+.

News at 11. Fake surprise at 11.03.

So 30 times the resources per studen gives a single quartile bonus that doesn't last beyond the sophomore year of college.

Yeah, not exactly a sound public policy choice.

[NERVUN]

Just as an aside, I would like to state that current research shows no statistical difference in the college performance between public, private, and homeschooled. This means that in terms of education (as measured by colleges, yes, there is an issue with that), all three provide about the same level and one is not better than the other.

This of course means that it is up to the individual families to decide as the best way for them to educate their child, depending on cost, need, educational level of the parents, time, and of course the child. So before I get accused of trying to say that all children need to be in public schools, I am not. I am however stating that, currently, nothing is showing itself off as better.

[Dazchan]

Because you don't know what the word means.

That definition is ridiculous. What about people in prison who aren't there long term for crimes that aren't very serious? Are they not in a prison now?

Perhaps you'd prefer the definition from the Maquarie Budget Dictionary I have at my desk:

Prison {n} A public building for the confinement or safe custody of criminals and others committed by law.

Maybe the Essential Oxford English Dictionary:

Prison, n., place of captivity, esp. building to which persons are consigned while awaiting trial or for punishment.

Noticing a theme yet?

[The USOT]

You had no choice in being born or breathing or eating to survive, because those things are laws of nature. You have no choice in them, neither does anybody else that is alive. This is in stark contrast to coercion of behalf of others, where they imprison you through force.

See ive heard of this thing which forces me to go to education to be competetive
Puts people in situations where they have to work long hours to survive (which of course they have no choice in, as the will to surive is natural of the human body)
And of course through loans and advertisements coerces people to do its bidding.

Its called the capitalist system.

[Norstal]

None of those 5 things has anything to do with what constitutes a prison.

Life is a prison then. What are you gonna do, rebel against physics?

[Infinite Harmony]

...

The average amount spent on education per child per year in the US is about $10 500, and trending upward. This is about $210 000 per an (average sized) classroom of 20, taught by one teacher. Despite massive real (i.e. adjusted for inflation) increases in funding since the 1970's and earlier, results have not improved by any legitimate measure I have heard of since then.

In short, this is a huge amount of resources devoted to a system with very poor results relative to said resources. Clearly something with this model is seriously wrong, and it seems to me that funding is not the main prime issue here.


Can parents teach? It seems that many of them can, and can do so significantly better than public schools do. See:

http://hslda.org/docs/nche/000000/00000017.asp

Standardized test results for 16,000 home educated children, grades K-12, were analyzed in 1994 by researcher Dr. Brian Ray. He found the nationwide grand mean in reading for homeschoolers was at the 79th percentile; for language and math, the 73rd percentile. This ranking means home-educated students performed better than approximately 77% of the sample population on whom the test was normed. Nearly 80% of homeschooled children achieved individual scores above the national average and 54.7% of the 16,000 homeschoolers achieved individual scores in the top quarter of the population, more than double the number of conventional school students who score in the top quarter.

Besides the problem of self-reporting, there's another issue here: current research shows that, after the sophomore year in college, there's no difference between homeschool, private school, or public school student in college. None. So that vaulted leg up... doesn't show.

I didn't know that they fared similarly after their sophomore year. In my defense it does seems completely logical that students who score significantly better on various academic measures would fare better in college. At the very least they are not faring worse...

This brings up another issue however, that is the (roughly 50% of students, homeschooled or otherwise) who don't go on to college. While it seems hard to find such data (via my google searches at least), it would seem logical that those 50% of non-college educated homeschoolers would fare better than the non-homeschooled, given their much better aptitude scores as referenced above.

As for this idea that John Taylor Gatto is some nefarious "hidden agenda" agent, I have seen no evidence to support this claim. On the other hand, he claims to have studied the history of modern schooling systems in great depth and breadth, (see http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm), and seems to make a strong case that there is a hidden agenda (not necessarily understood by many educators) behind modern school systems.

If there is any good evidence that proves that a) John Taylor Gatto has some dangerous hidden agenda, and/or b) that his research and associated conclusions in his book (above) are fatally flawed, I would like to see it so I might factor it into my thinking. If no good evidence to support these claim exists, I hope that posters here will cease making comments which could be considered slanderous against someone who appears to have great knowledge, skill, and dedication regarding the teaching of young people in the US and elsewhere.

He has an agenda, that does not mean nefarious or hidden. His agenda is right out in the open, and here, since you ignored it the last time: http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/testtoday.htm

And sir, YOU have no place to claim slander after trying to state the same for all public school teachers. John Gatto does not play NS, teachers do.

You are the one who referred to him as "having an agenda", which you have to admit sounds rather negative when discussing a person you don't seem to care for. If indeed you did not intend to imply that the agenda was either nefarious nor hidden, I offer my apologies for my poor choice of words. AFAIK his main agenda is to promote a style of teaching that produces excellent results (as his teaching did years ago), and I doubt that any secondary "agenda" of his overrule this desire.

Regarding the statement "...claim slander after trying to state the same for all public school teachers", I do not know what this means. Perhaps you are thinking of someone else, if you look over my comments again you may note that I have clearly and repeatedly expressed my view that teachers have good intentions and work ethic, and that my issue is with the setup of modern schooling as opposed to the teachers themselves.


As for the article, I didn't follow up with the other thread (I suppose I should have), and did not intentionally "ignore" the link. With that said, I have looked at it now and hardly think that it proves that private schools would be bad, theorizing of the author aside. The real-world outcome with almost everything else opened up to competition suggests that an improvement is the more likely result. Also FWIW, John Taylor Gatto is not in favour of a strict NCLB-type testing regime, I suspect that he would be very happy if public schools were to remain in place assuming they adopted better teaching methods. I further suspect however that after years of experience in said schools has lead him to believe the chances of this happening to be so small that he is led to promote alternatives instead.

See http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/educa ... -education by Mr. Gatto for the type of educational setup he promotes. If you have evidence that the state of US education is indeed improving over the decades - especially to the point it would compare to the results of Mr.Gatto's or those he references - please link me to an article showing this outcome, as I have not seen the evidence so far. AFAIK, funding of this system has gone up massively over the decades, while results have stayed relatively poor as compared to other industrialized countries. I have also not heard of any good solutions proposed by those who are in control of this system, the main suggestion being "more funding" (see above).

So again, to be clear: I respect the good intentions and energy investment displayed by public school teachers, I realize that it's not an easy job in the current model. With that said, I just don't think that the end results are anywhere near what they should be given the current funding and amount of time already passed in which the (public school) model might have been researched and positively modified. As such, I am left to conclude that alternatives - either within or outside of the public school model - should be seriously studied and tested as soon as possible, and I'm not sure why this is not being done if those running the current systems are the "education experts" they claim to be...

[Linux and the X]

It's pretty obvious that school is not prison. Consider the work of Epstein & Dumas: in a questionnaire on restrictions of rights, prisoners had an average score of 14,6. This isn't anything close to the 26,6 students averaged. (For reference, the average non-institutionalised civilian scores 2,3.)

[NERVUN]

Besides the problem of self-reporting, there's another issue here: current research shows that, after the sophomore year in college, there's no difference between homeschool, private school, or public school student in college. None. So that vaulted leg up... doesn't show.

I didn't know that they fared similarly after their sophomore year. In my defense it does seems completely logical that students who score significantly better on various academic measures would fare better in college. At the very least they are not faring worse...

Data is better than just guessing. It's also important to look at it via such levelers. Part of the critism with some of the homechool data is that homeschool students are not blanketed tested the way public schools are. That means the data can be slightly misleading as the homeschoolers who are testing self-select. It's akin to trying to hold a race to see which country's people are faster, the US or Jamaica. The US team has to be randomly selected out of the whole population, but Jamaica can just send its Olympic team with Bolt on it. That is obviously not a fair race or way to determine which country is faster.

College performance is a slightly better metric as they have much higher gatekeeping standards, so you tend to get students with simular backgrounds and educational ability (Which again, is another problem with comparing test scores. Public schools have to teach everyone. Private and homeschools do not. The poor tend to not homeschool or send their kids to private and being poor does have an effect. The same with the most important factor, parental involvement. Parents who take an active interest in their child's education have children who do well in school, regardless of where they get their education, public, private, or home. Homeschooled children obviously have highly involved parents).

This brings up another issue however, that is the (roughly 50% of students, homeschooled or otherwise) who don't go on to college. While it seems hard to find such data (via my google searches at least), it would seem logical that those 50% of non-college educated homeschoolers would fare better than the non-homeschooled, given their much better aptitude scores as referenced above.

Really? Why would you think so? High test scores on a standardized test usually do not translate really well to workplace experiences.

He has an agenda, that does not mean nefarious or hidden. His agenda is right out in the open, and here, since you ignored it the last time: http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/testtoday.htm

And sir, YOU have no place to claim slander after trying to state the same for all public school teachers. John Gatto does not play NS, teachers do.

You are the one who referred to him as "having an agenda", which you have to admit sounds rather negative when discussing a person you don't seem to care for. If indeed you did not intend to imply that the agenda was either nefarious nor hidden, I offer my apologies for my poor choice of words. AFAIK his main agenda is to promote a style of teaching that produces excellent results (as his teaching did years ago), and I doubt that any secondary "agenda" of his overrule this desire.

*sighs* Having an agenda just means that he is working towards a goal. His goal is the destruction of the public school system. He states this, repeatedly. It's like listening to a politican, you have to understand that politicans, no matter what their stripe, have their agendas and anything they state will be colored by that agenda. They will cherrypick their facts and gloss over anything that doesn't agree with them. Spin is another word for it. John Gatto is a man who is doing the same, he doesn't provide a ballanced approch to what he says and thus one has to take what he says with a grain of salt. This isn't saying that he doesn't have some points or doesn't have some good ideas, but one must reconize that he has his own agenda.

Regarding the statement "...claim slander after trying to state the same for all public school teachers", I do not know what this means. Perhaps you are thinking of someone else, if you look over my comments again you may note that I have clearly and repeatedly expressed my view that teachers have good intentions and work ethic, and that my issue is with the setup of modern schooling as opposed to the teachers themselves.

"and seems to make a strong case that there is a hidden agenda (not necessarily understood by many educators) behind modern school systems." Those were your words. Don't you think it might be slightly rude to imply that either teachers are a part of a hidden agenda or are ignorant of how their system works and are thus unwitting rubes?

As for the article, I didn't follow up with the other thread (I suppose I should have), and did not intentionally "ignore" the link. With that said, I have looked at it now and hardly think that it proves that private schools would be bad, theorizing of the author aside. The real-world outcome with almost everything else opened up to competition suggests that an improvement is the more likely result.

If you didn't ignore it, I appologize. But I believe you mis-read the article, it mainly points out that John Gatto does have an aggenda, it also points out some of the problems with this notion that privitization will magically make all the problems go away.

Also FWIW, John Taylor Gatto is not in favour of a strict NCLB-type testing regime, I suspect that he would be very happy if public schools were to remain in place assuming they adopted better teaching methods. I further suspect however that after years of experience in said schools has lead him to believe the chances of this happening to be so small that he is led to promote alternatives instead.

No, he seems to be very clear that he wants the public system abolished. It's also telling though that he doesn't provide any real support that doing so will solve the very problems he notes.

I believe a homeschool advocate said it best that John Gatto is like going to a doctor who tells you that there's something wrong, and then leaves with a "I hope it works out for you" without providing any real treatment.

See http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/educa ... -education by Mr. Gatto for the type of educational setup he promotes. If you have evidence that the state of US education is indeed improving over the decades - especially to the point it would compare to the results of Mr.Gatto's or those he references - please link me to an article showing this outcome, as I have not seen the evidence so far. AFAIK, funding of this system has gone up massively over the decades, while results have stayed relatively poor as compared to other industrialized countries. I have also not heard of any good solutions proposed by those who are in control of this system, the main suggestion being "more funding" (see above).

Let's see here, over the years literacy rates in the US have improved. The number of children who have gone through high school has improved (Prior to WWII, it was rare for that to happen). Students going to college have improved. There's a number of metrics that do show improvement. There's also problems with just the numbers and abilties of the students the public system is taking in.

I WOULD note something that John Gatto and others who are screaming about the public system are very carefully glossing over, all those other industrialzed nations that preform better? They ALL have public systems. In fact, some of them do not allow for alternative schooling at all.

So again, to be clear: I respect the good intentions and energy investment displayed by public school teachers, I realize that it's not an easy job in the current model. With that said, I just don't think that the end results are anywhere near what they should be given the current funding and amount of time already passed in which the (public school) model might have been researched and positively modified. As such, I am left to conclude that alternatives - either within or outside of the public school model - should be seriously studied and tested as soon as possible, and I'm not sure why this is not being done if those running the current systems are the "education experts" they claim to be...

I honestly do not understand where you are getting the notion that alternatives are not being used or studied. The US's system allows such, much more than other nations. You CAN homeschool. You CAN send them to private schools or religious schools. You CAN send them to various charter schools. These options sometimes do not even exist outside the US.

So to say that the education experts aren't open to new ideas and alternatives are false. What they are opposed to is what the right currently wants, which is full on privitzation of the system.

Admititedly it is just my experience, but I have been on NS for a number of years now and I remember just 3 threads that actually asked the teaching population of NS just what they thought would be good for schools.

I've lost count of the number of threads like this one that starts off with broad statements about how schools are failing so we must go private imediately.

[Infinite Harmony]

I didn't know that they fared similarly after their sophomore year. In my defense it does seems completely logical that students who score significantly better on various academic measures would fare better in college. At the very least they are not faring worse...

Data is better than just guessing. It's also important to look at it via such levelers. Part of the critism with some of the homechool data is that homeschool students are not blanketed tested the way public schools are. That means the data can be slightly misleading as the homeschoolers who are testing self-select. It's akin to trying to hold a race to see which country's people are faster, the US or Jamaica. The US team has to be randomly selected out of the whole population, but Jamaica can just send its Olympic team with Bolt on it. That is obviously not a fair race or way to determine which country is faster.

College performance is a slightly better metric as they have much higher gatekeeping standards, so you tend to get students with simular backgrounds and educational ability (Which again, is another problem with comparing test scores. Public schools have to teach everyone. Private and homeschools do not. The poor tend to not homeschool or send their kids to private and being poor does have an effect. The same with the most important factor, parental involvement. Parents who take an active interest in their child's education have children who do well in school, regardless of where they get their education, public, private, or home. Homeschooled children obviously have highly involved parents).

Regarding the blanketed testing, I think the fact that homeschooled students do better in first-year college supports the claim that they have been better educated. That seems to be a pretty fair method of testing their schooling up to that point IMO.

The issue of poverty parental involvement seems to be a fair one, I'll grant you that. With that noted, the stories I have heard about horrible (dysfunctional, violent and gang-infested, high-dropout, etc.) inner-city schools is hardly inspiring in that area either. It might be noted that these where the same type of students that John Taylor Gatto had such success with in the Bronx years ago, and without resorting to police-state like tactics (in fact just the opposite).

This brings up another issue however, that is the (roughly 50% of students, homeschooled or otherwise) who don't go on to college. While it seems hard to find such data (via my google searches at least), it would seem logical that those 50% of non-college educated homeschoolers would fare better than the non-homeschooled, given their much better aptitude scores as referenced above.

Really? Why would you think so? High test scores on a standardized test usually do not translate really well to workplace experiences.

Isn't this statement paradoxical coming from a teacher? On one hand you support children being kept in school for 12 years or more, on the other hand you say that their performance in these schools doesn't translate well into workplace experiences. That asked, the fact that the homeschooled students learned more suggests to me that they may be better self-learners than others (assuming a less structured homeschool environment), while not being anti-social (surveys suggest more extracurricular/community/charity involvement amongst homeshcoolers than non-homeschoolers). At best this could be a significant advantage, at worst it might be neutral IMO.

You are the one who referred to him as "having an agenda", which you have to admit sounds rather negative when discussing a person you don't seem to care for. If indeed you did not intend to imply that the agenda was either nefarious nor hidden, I offer my apologies for my poor choice of words. AFAIK his main agenda is to promote a style of teaching that produces excellent results (as his teaching did years ago), and I doubt that any secondary "agenda" of his overrule this desire.

*sighs* Having an agenda just means that he is working towards a goal. His goal is the destruction of the public school system. He states this, repeatedly. It's like listening to a politican, you have to understand that politicans, no matter what their stripe, have their agendas and anything they state will be colored by that agenda. They will cherrypick their facts and gloss over anything that doesn't agree with them. Spin is another word for it. John Gatto is a man who is doing the same, he doesn't provide a balanced approach to what he says and thus one has to take what he says with a grain of salt. This isn't saying that he doesn't have some points or doesn't have some good ideas, but one must recognize that he has his own agenda.

John Taylor Gatto was recognized by this public school system as a "teacher of the year", and has been very clear and open since 1991 on what he did to achieve the results he was praised for by said school system. Despite this, the school system has done little if anything to try to adopt his methods or understanding, and indeed seems to have gone in a contrary direction. After decades of this before, during, and after his career can you really blame him for believing that education cannot be reformed with the current power structures in place? Can you really blame him for seeking alternatives that could potentially do a much better job, as demonstrated by himself and others?

As for the article you linked, its reference material on John Taylor Gatto is here: http://www.wesjones.com/gatto1.htm is the only source listed), and seems to be more of a call to action to parents instead of a wholesale "destruction" of the public school system. I suspect he would be OK with public schools if they adopted more workable methods (as he managed to do), as unlikely as this may be in reality. Again, his prime agenda here seems to get people thinking and acting in a manner that would promote genuine independence and learning as opposed to a more sheeplike/cog-in-a-machine type manner that he believes the current system promotes.

Regarding the statement "...claim slander after trying to state the same for all public school teachers", I do not know what this means. Perhaps you are thinking of someone else, if you look over my comments again you may note that I have clearly and repeatedly expressed my view that teachers have good intentions and work ethic, and that my issue is with the setup of modern schooling as opposed to the teachers themselves.

"and seems to make a strong case that there is a hidden agenda (not necessarily understood by many educators) behind modern school systems." Those were your words. Don't you think it might be slightly rude to imply that either teachers are a part of a hidden agenda or are ignorant of how their system works and are thus unwitting rubes?

As stated numerous times in the past, I do not think teachers are aware of the history here, indeed it took John Taylor Gatto many thousands of hours of research after he retired teaching to figure it out himself. Have you read his book or done the research on this yourself? Have your colleagues? If you (or they) haven't, is it really that surprising that you might not understand it, especially if you have been conditioned for years to see matters in a different light?

People in general tend to herd together and not deeply question what they have been taught. Intelligent people adopt and defend flawed paradigms all the time, even when the evidence showing a better way forward is laid out for them. http://amasci.com/weird/vindac.html is an excellent article dealing with this subject, I highly recommend everyone here read and reflect on it, society would be greatly improved IMO if this were better understood.

As for the article, I didn't follow up with the other thread (I suppose I should have), and did not intentionally "ignore" the link. With that said, I have looked at it now and hardly think that it proves that private schools would be bad, theorizing of the author aside. The real-world outcome with almost everything else opened up to competition suggests that an improvement is the more likely result.

If you didn't ignore it, I appologize. But I believe you mis-read the article, it mainly points out that John Gatto does have an aggenda, it also points out some of the problems with this notion that privitization will magically make all the problems go away.

With all due respect, some of the "problems" noted in that article seem very illogical. The idea that someone could monopolize private schooling was the one I recall the most, something that would be very unlikely due to the extreme costs involved in cornering a market, and using the (absurd IMO) assumption that children and parents would reward bad private schools with their $10 500 dollars if they weren't doing a decent job of educating the children. As noted earlier, free markets tend strongly to increase quality of goods and services while reducing costs, unless someone can prove to me why education would not be in line with almost every other free-market service in recorded history I suspect the same trend would hold true...

Also FWIW, John Taylor Gatto is not in favour of a strict NCLB-type testing regime, I suspect that he would be very happy if public schools were to remain in place assuming they adopted better teaching methods. I further suspect however that after years of experience in said schools has lead him to believe the chances of this happening to be so small that he is led to promote alternatives instead.

No, he seems to be very clear that he wants the public system abolished. It's also telling though that he doesn't provide any real support that doing so will solve the very problems he notes.

I believe a homeschool advocate said it best that John Gatto is like going to a doctor who tells you that there's something wrong, and then leaves with a "I hope it works out for you" without providing any real treatment.

His methods and results with teaching are his "support" or "treatment", on which he has talked and written about for years now. The fact that they would require a significant shift of mindset and structure from the current paradigm may be troubling to many in the field, but that is not the same as saying they won't work when the evidence suggests that they will.

See http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/educa ... -education by Mr. Gatto for the type of educational setup he promotes. If you have evidence that the state of US education is indeed improving over the decades - especially to the point it would compare to the results of Mr.Gatto's or those he references - please link me to an article showing this outcome, as I have not seen the evidence so far. AFAIK, funding of this system has gone up massively over the decades, while results have stayed relatively poor as compared to other industrialized countries. I have also not heard of any good solutions proposed by those who are in control of this system, the main suggestion being "more funding" (see above).

Let's see here, over the years literacy rates in the US have improved. The number of children who have gone through high school has improved (Prior to WWII, it was rare for that to happen). Students going to college have improved. There's a number of metrics that do show improvement. There's also problems with just the numbers and abilties of the students the public system is taking in.

I WOULD note something that John Gatto and others who are screaming about the public system are very carefully glossing over, all those other industrialzed nations that preform better? They ALL have public systems. In fact, some of them do not allow for alternative schooling at all.

I have heard some serious complaints by heads of US industry about "functional illiteracy". Jay Leno's "Jaywalking" segments show many of the (very ignorant) students of the US public school system, according to him the people he interviews are more the norm than the exception, he says it takes very little time to film those segments.

WW2 was a long time ago, and real per-student funding then was a small fraction of what it is today, with the increased funding factored in the results should be outstanding, easily the best of the OECD countries. As for the "abilities" comment, I'm not sure what this is referring to, as the parents of most American children today are products of the same (public) educational system. If the schooling of the parents was top-notch, one might expect the abilities of most of their children to be similar, wouldn't you? Maybe you are refering to immigrants here, but from what I hear most Mexicans are very hard working. If you are referring to special needs students I don't see how the US would be significantly different form other countries in this area.

As for students going to college, this problem seems to affect college students as well http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/ ... read/28423

Also, it would appear that the results of Mr. Gatto's teaching were better than most or all of those (OECD) countries, which would be the better metric here IMO in terms of judging his thinking on this subject.

So again, to be clear: I respect the good intentions and energy investment displayed by public school teachers, I realize that it's not an easy job in the current model. With that said, I just don't think that the end results are anywhere near what they should be given the current funding and amount of time already passed in which the (public school) model might have been researched and positively modified. As such, I am left to conclude that alternatives - either within or outside of the public school model - should be seriously studied and tested as soon as possible, and I'm not sure why this is not being done if those running the current systems are the "education experts" they claim to be...

I honestly do not understand where you are getting the notion that alternatives are not being used or studied. The US's system allows such, much more than other nations. You CAN homeschool. You CAN send them to private schools or religious schools. You CAN send them to various charter schools. These options sometimes do not even exist outside the US.

So to say that the education experts aren't open to new ideas and alternatives are false. What they are opposed to is what the right currently wants, which is full on privitzation of the system.

Admititedly it is just my experience, but I have been on NS for a number of years now and I remember just 3 threads that actually asked the teaching population of NS just what they thought would be good for schools.

The OP was about public schools, so I'll keep to that.

In 60 years of education, how much true innovation or alternatives have been deeply studies and implemented? The only significant change that I am aware of is the massive increase in funding, without a subsequent rise in performance. If the school system was working well, would the right have any real leverage to push privatization? I think not.

John Holt studied and wrote about proven improvements back in the 1960's, Gatto has been discussing them since the 1980's, Einstein and Feyman discussed the optimal ways of learning and teaching before then, and (Sir) Ken Robinson has been covering this topic for a few years now. Despite these proven experts showing a better way forward, the institutionalized-type schooling methods (as explained by John Taylor Gatto) remain in place.

I'm sorry if people's posts on NS regarding schooling make you feel disrespected, it is not my intent nor I suspect the intent of many others here, and I suspect you do not get the credit you deserve for your good intentions and energetic investments in teaching. If teachers can effect changes that make schools decidedly better than they are today, I welcome them to do so. Until then, I think that others here will continue to note their serious concerns about the system and discuss alternatives to it.

[NERVUN]

Edit: A few more thoughts now that I am more awake.

Data is better than just guessing. It's also important to look at it via such levelers. Part of the critism with some of the homechool data is that homeschool students are not blanketed tested the way public schools are. That means the data can be slightly misleading as the homeschoolers who are testing self-select. It's akin to trying to hold a race to see which country's people are faster, the US or Jamaica. The US team has to be randomly selected out of the whole population, but Jamaica can just send its Olympic team with Bolt on it. That is obviously not a fair race or way to determine which country is faster.

College performance is a slightly better metric as they have much higher gatekeeping standards, so you tend to get students with simular backgrounds and educational ability (Which again, is another problem with comparing test scores. Public schools have to teach everyone. Private and homeschools do not. The poor tend to not homeschool or send their kids to private and being poor does have an effect. The same with the most important factor, parental involvement. Parents who take an active interest in their child's education have children who do well in school, regardless of where they get their education, public, private, or home. Homeschooled children obviously have highly involved parents).

Regarding the blanketed testing, I think the fact that homeschooled students do better in first-year college supports the claim that they have been better educated. That seems to be a pretty fair method of testing their schooling up to that point IMO.

Ah, no. No it doesn't in the slightest. Sorry, but that claim comes out of left field, it shows that, all things being equal, the three methods are equal. Thus, as with this thread, we should look for other causes. You must remember that the first year or two of college is usually the general classes, once a student passes that, they are usually into their major course of study, which is where one would assume that any ‘legs up’ would be the most notable as those subjects are the ones that are usually more intense in terms of study as well as dovetailing student interest. And there’s no difference between them.

The issue of poverty parental involvement seems to be a fair one, I'll grant you that. With that noted, the stories I have heard about horrible (dysfunctional, violent and gang-infested, high-dropout, etc.) inner-city schools is hardly inspiring in that area either. It might be noted that these where the same type of students that John Taylor Gatto had such success with in the Bronx years ago, and without resorting to police-state like tactics (in fact just the opposite).

And not all other teachers resort to police-state tactics either. I hate to tell you this, but John Gatto is not the only teacher on the planet, nor is he the only teacher to get results (Whatever the hell that means), and honestly, while I can understand you like him, you show just how shallow your understanding of education is by quoting only him.

Really? Why would you think so? High test scores on a standardized test usually do not translate really well to workplace experiences.

Isn't this statement paradoxical coming from a teacher? On one hand you support children being kept in school for 12 years or more, on the other hand you say that their performance in these schools doesn't translate well into workplace experiences. That asked, the fact that the homeschooled students learned more suggests to me that they may be better self-learners than others (assuming a less structured homeschool environment), while not being anti-social (surveys suggest more extracurricular/community/charity involvement amongst homeshcoolers than non-homeschoolers). At best this could be a significant advantage, at worst it might be neutral IMO.

Ah... no, I said that standardized tests do not translate. I explained why this is to you last time as well. To recap, STs take a snapshot of a student, and just as a snapshot does not show the whole of a person’s life or ability, nor do STs do the same for a student’s education. STs are limited; they test about, at best, 5% of the curricula. STs are poor evaluators in discovering student thought processes (Normally because in order to get through a number of students quickly, the test format is usually multiple choice), this makes it possible for students to get the right answer for the wrong reasons, or show brilliance with the reasoning, but still arrive at the wrong answer. Thus STs do not equal a student's education.

Furthermore, you are assuming that home school automatically leads to a less structured environment, this is not the case. And it IS your own opinion, and one I discount as you have shown a lack of depth in this.

Data, not opinion please.

*sighs* Having an agenda just means that he is working towards a goal. His goal is the destruction of the public school system. He states this, repeatedly. It's like listening to a politican, you have to understand that politicans, no matter what their stripe, have their agendas and anything they state will be colored by that agenda. They will cherrypick their facts and gloss over anything that doesn't agree with them. Spin is another word for it. John Gatto is a man who is doing the same, he doesn't provide a balanced approach to what he says and thus one has to take what he says with a grain of salt. This isn't saying that he doesn't have some points or doesn't have some good ideas, but one must recognize that he has his own agenda.

John Taylor Gatto was recognized by this public school system as a "teacher of the year", and has been very clear and open since 1991 on what he did to achieve the results he was praised for by said school system. Despite this, the school system has done little if anything to try to adopt his methods or understanding, and indeed seems to have gone in a contrary direction. After decades of this before, during, and after his career can you really blame him for believing that education cannot be reformed with the current power structures in place? Can you really blame him for seeking alternatives that could potentially do a much better job, as demonstrated by himself and others?

You know, I know other teachers who have been recognized as teacher of the year in their areas who disagree with Mr. Gatto, so repeatedly saying "Teacher of the year" as if you were some kind of parrot doesn't mean anything. The man still has an agenda; he has stated he wants to see public schools dismantled. So yes, it is important to look at what he is saying in that light, the same way you probably take anything President Obama says.

Or to put it another way, that video you linked to earlier, the valedictorian, well I (Don’t actually have a video of it because I was more concerned with my students and it would be illegal under Japanese laws to post it anyway) happen to have heard a speech by a student who was homes schooled for most of her life but decided that she wanted to have a public school experience because she felt she was missing out on a number of events and experiences so she went back to school for her second and third year of junior high and now into high school. She also won the All Nagano English Rhetorical Contest and IIRC, took the regional and placed highly in the All Japan contest last year.

So does my use of her speech mean that I am right? No, because I acknowledge that there are students who have had bad public school experiences and one person does not a trend make.

As for the article you linked, its reference material on John Taylor Gatto is here: http://www.wesjones.com/gatto1.htm is the only source listed), and seems to be more of a call to action to parents instead of a wholesale "destruction" of the public school system. I suspect he would be OK with public schools if they adopted more workable methods (as he managed to do), as unlikely as this may be in reality. Again, his prime agenda here seems to get people thinking and acting in a manner that would promote genuine independence and learning as opposed to a more sheeplike/cog-in-a-machine type manner that he believes the current system promotes.

And again that doesn't address anything I have actually said.

"and seems to make a strong case that there is a hidden agenda (not necessarily understood by many educators) behind modern school systems." Those were your words. Don't you think it might be slightly rude to imply that either teachers are a part of a hidden agenda or are ignorant of how their system works and are thus unwitting rubes?

As stated numerous times in the past, I do not think teachers are aware of the history here, indeed it took John Taylor Gatto many thousands of hours of research after he retired teaching to figure it out himself. Have you read his book or done the research on this yourself? Have your colleagues? If you (or they) haven't, is it really that surprising that you might not understand it, especially if you have been conditioned for years to see matters in a different light?

Excuse me, but I will call bullshit on that statement. John Gatto claims to have researched (of course he also doesn't bother to cite so we have no way to check), but I'm sorry, I think I will take the views of men and women who have devoted their lives to researching education, who have the proven credentials to back it up, and who are capable of writing in a scholarly fashion and providing not only the hard numbers beyond stories, but do so in as neutral a manner possible over someone who is cherrypicking to prove his point.

But, in any case, let me make it easy. Do you want to know what education is all about? I learned this the very first day of class in my very first Curriculum and Instruction course in university. Our professor asked us to state just what is the purpose of education and we all had different notions, job skills, life skills, citizenship, training for factories, teaching kids to think, and then the professor, using research, guided us to an answer that after 7 years of study in education and 7 years as a teacher both inside and outside the school holds true, education is the attempt of one group, to depart the skills and values it deems important to another group, usually the older generation to the younger.

That’s what schools are all about. We quibble about methodology, and of course have loud arguments about WHAT skills and values, but I haven’t seen any other teacher or researcher state the purpose of education any differently than that.

People in general tend to herd together and not deeply question what they have been taught. Intelligent people adopt and defend flawed paradigms all the time, even when the evidence showing a better way forward is laid out for them. http://amasci.com/weird/vindac.html is an excellent article dealing with this subject, I highly recommend everyone here read and reflect on it, society would be greatly improved IMO if this were better understood.

And certain people always want to be the ones to be in on the secret know.

Of course, this isn't the first time you've attempted this. It’s also important to note that the website you posted means very little, of course we don’t know the failures, because the failures tend to not get recorded. The problem with saying that the mavericks are right is that it glosses over the problem of HOW they were right, they were right because they could show better data, not just their opinions.

If you didn't ignore it, I appologize. But I believe you mis-read the article, it mainly points out that John Gatto does have an aggenda, it also points out some of the problems with this notion that privitization will magically make all the problems go away.

With all due respect, some of the "problems" noted in that article seem very illogical. The idea that someone could monopolize private schooling was the one I recall the most, something that would be very unlikely due to the extreme costs involved in cornering a market, and using the (absurd IMO) assumption that children and parents would reward bad private schools with their $10 500 dollars if they weren't doing a decent job of educating the children. As noted earlier, free markets tend strongly to increase quality of goods and services while reducing costs, unless someone can prove to me why education would not be in line with almost every other free-market service in recorded history I suspect the same trend would hold true...

Have you ever bothered to look at schooling outside the US? Try some of the public schools (Private) in the UK, their histories and horror stories.

Then read Jennifer Government.

No, he seems to be very clear that he wants the public system abolished. It's also telling though that he doesn't provide any real support that doing so will solve the very problems he notes.

I believe a homeschool advocate said it best that John Gatto is like going to a doctor who tells you that there's something wrong, and then leaves with a "I hope it works out for you" without providing any real treatment.

His methods and results with teaching are his "support" or "treatment", on which he has talked and written about for years now. The fact that they would require a significant shift of mindset and structure from the current paradigm may be troubling to many in the field, but that is not the same as saying they won't work when the evidence suggests that they will.

What evidence? His evidence is his own stories. That doesn't make evidence, that's the START of actually doing real research.

Let's see here, over the years literacy rates in the US have improved. The number of children who have gone through high school has improved (Prior to WWII, it was rare for that to happen). Students going to college have improved. There's a number of metrics that do show improvement. There's also problems with just the numbers and abilties of the students the public system is taking in.

I WOULD note something that John Gatto and others who are screaming about the public system are very carefully glossing over, all those other industrialzed nations that preform better? They ALL have public systems. In fact, some of them do not allow for alternative schooling at all.

I have heard some serious complaints by heads of US industry about "functional illiteracy". Jay Leno's "Jaywalking" segments show many of the (very ignorant) students of the US public school system, according to him the people he interviews are more the norm than the exception, he says it takes very little time to film those segments.

Really? You're using the idea of a talk show host's segment that is designed to make people look stupid as evidence? REALLY?!

WW2 was a long time ago, and real per-student funding then was a small fraction of what it is today, with the increased funding factored in the results should be outstanding, easily the best of the OECD countries. As for the "abilities" comment, I'm not sure what this is referring to, as the parents of most American children today are products of the same (public) educational system. If the schooling of the parents was top-notch, one might expect the abilities of most of their children to be similar, wouldn't you? Maybe you are referring to immigrants here, but from what I hear most Mexicans are very hard working. If you are referring to special needs students I don't see how the US would be significantly different form other countries in this area.

Do you know just how many students the US educates? Do you know just how many students the US has that are ESL? Special Ed? Actually, YES, the numbers are very different. A number of countries (Japan included) tend to still force students who have such problems under the rug. America is almost unique in that regards, we attempt to educate everyone, and we tend to view it as a state/national responsibility.

To put it another way, Japan, which usually gets held up as a poster child for a great education system spends far lower per student, sortta. The sortta is due to the fact that Japan fosters a lot of the costs on parents, making it expensive for parents to send their child to school.

As for students going to college, this problem seems to affect college students as well http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/ ... read/28423

*sighs* Ah yes, the study that has already been attacked for numerous problems.

Also, it would appear that the results of Mr. Gatto's teaching were better than most or all of those (OECD) countries, which would be the better metric here IMO in terms of judging his thinking on this subject.

Uh, no they weren't. Unless you can show me that his students went head to head on those tests.

Again, your opinion means little.

I honestly do not understand where you are getting the notion that alternatives are not being used or studied. The US's system allows such, much more than other nations. You CAN homeschool. You CAN send them to private schools or religious schools. You CAN send them to various charter schools. These options sometimes do not even exist outside the US.

So to say that the education experts aren't open to new ideas and alternatives are false. What they are opposed to is what the right currently wants, which is full on privitzation of the system.

Admititedly it is just my experience, but I have been on NS for a number of years now and I remember just 3 threads that actually asked the teaching population of NS just what they thought would be good for schools.

The OP was about public schools, so I'll keep to that.

In 60 years of education, how much true innovation or alternatives have been deeply studies and implemented? The only significant change that I am aware of is the massive increase in funding, without a subsequent rise in performance. If the school system was working well, would the right have any real leverage to push privatization? I think not.

I'll stop right here, because everything you have shown to me so far is that your own background is reading nothing but John Gatto. You have not actually studied the history of education and what trends have been used in schools. The methods and methodology has changed, greatly, from when I was a student to when I started studying to be a teacher. To use my own discipline, the last few decades has seen a huge switch from Audio-lingual to PPP, and even that is now dying as newer methods of language instruction (Such as task based) are providing better results. Since you do not know and I honestly do not feel the need to re-type my college textbooks, all I can really say is that if you honestly, truly, want to know I will be glad to recommend you a number of scholarly books about the development of education.

But I would suspect that you don't because of your last quote. Because you do not seem to get a point that even ZR admits to, it ain't about getting educated students, it's about being annoyed that they have to pay taxes to public schools.

[Ryadn]

Now we are reaching what I like to call a compromise. How about I suggest this approach?

Schools are not prisons. A school is simply a school. While sometimes a school may seem like a prison, especially to those who do not react well to any kind of mandated activity, it is in fact not.

I appreciate you extending the branch out, but I personally still believe that public education is a prison. A voluntary school is just a school, a compulsory school is both a prison and a school.

Your personal belief still isn't reality. I know that insisting it IS reality seems like evidence enough, but it isn't.

[Ryadn]

None of those 5 things has anything to do with what constitutes a prison.

Life is a prison then. What are you gonna do, rebel against physics?

No, no, life is NATURAL. Prisons can't be natural. It's a fun game, you really should join.

[Salvarity]

1. Children are treated like criminals, and they will in turn act like criminals. There is nothing that says "you are a criminal" more than locking a child up for the better half of the day. Once in school, kids form their own cliques (equivalent to prison gangs) and segregate themselves based on class, race etc.

2. Parents don't give a shit about their kids, mainly because there is a free daycare available. This free daycare is the public education system, which provides an opportunity to dump your kids off in jail all day, and incentivizes it. Have you ever wondered why the school day often starts at 7 in the morning, when studies show that children learn better when they actually get sleep? The reason why is because the parents need to be off to work by that time, so they need to be able to throw their kids in the daycare early in the morning. Nothing says "I don't give a shit about you" more than abandoning your child in a prison for the day.

4. School offers an opportunity to teach kids that nothing can ever be accomplished, and that life is a waste of time. Before anything of substance can be completed in the classroom, the bell rings and you are off to your next menial task. Basically, this is how the system turns kids into procrastinators. John Gatto, a former teacher of the year writes about the REAL lessons kids learn in the classroom. Instead of listing them all here, I will just direct you to this link.

The other 2 I agree with Partially but these 2.These 3 all i have to say is . As a person who is in NY Public Education System i gotta say these are true.

Here is from Personal experience.
1. In Elementary School i was only talking with the Other Brown Kids. I Didn't really interact with African-Americans or White Kids because everyone kept to there own groups.

2.My Parents don't really care what i do in school. They just care that i get my grades and pass. They give me supplies but don't ever help me with anything. And i have noticed that with most students in my class. Seems to happen more to Boys than girls though.

4.I Gotta agree. Today at school my math teacher was in the middle of teaching use about Functions and she got cut off before we could really learn anything. Also where i live. I gotta wake up at 6 AM. Get ready for about 1 hour and then take the train to school. Kinda Depressing and very boring.

[Patriqvinia]

I appreciate you extending the branch out, but I personally still believe that public education is a prison. A voluntary school is just a school, a compulsory school is both a prison and a school.

Your personal belief still isn't reality. I know that insisting it IS reality seems like evidence enough, but it isn't.

Definition of PRISON
1
: a state of confinement or captivity

This matches mandatory school. The amount of time spent there is irrelevant, as are argumentum ad populum (espoused by many others in the debate).

[Salvarity]

Your personal belief still isn't reality. I know that insisting it IS reality seems like evidence enough, but it isn't.

Definition of PRISON
1
: a state of confinement or captivity

This matches mandatory school. The amount of time spent there is irrelevant, as are argumentum ad populum (espoused by many others in the debate).

For those who do believe above poster. Here is Source

School is Prison. We are FORCED to go there. Have you people of Truancy Officers. People who go hunting for kids not in school.

[Patriqvinia]

This matches mandatory school. The amount of time spent there is irrelevant, as are argumentum ad populum (espoused by many others in the debate).

For those who do believe above poster. Here is Source

School is Prison. We are FORCED to go there. Have you people of Truancy Officers. People who go hunting for kids not in school.

Oh yes, thanks. I neglected to mention that I got it from Webster, but this says the same (but 3 not 1).

[Grainne Ni Malley]

School is Prison. We are FORCED to go there. Have you people of Truancy Officers. People who go hunting for kids not in school.

Yes, and if a child is truant, then the parent is liable to go to an actual prison where things tend to far less pleasant than schools.

So even if you believe school is a prison, just quityerbitchin, go to the darn place and spare your parents the likelihood of having to go to a real prison.

[NERVUN]

This matches mandatory school. The amount of time spent there is irrelevant, as are argumentum ad populum (espoused by many others in the debate).

For those who do believe above poster. Here is Source

School is Prison. We are FORCED to go there. Have you people of Truancy Officers. People who go hunting for kids not in school.

No, it's not. Prison's purpose is punishment, a school is education. They're slightly different, no matter what teens would like to think.

[The Truth and Light]

School is Prison. We are FORCED to go there. Have you people of Truancy Officers. People who go hunting for kids not in school.

Yes, and if a child is truant, then the parent is liable to go to an actual prison where things tend to far less pleasant than schools.

So even if you believe school is a prison, just quityerbitchin, go to the darn place and spare your parents the likelihood of having to go to a real prison.

I take it you like the status quo.