The Future of Public Education

[Red Intria]

homeschooling would be so strictly regulated that only fully-qualified educators would be allowed to do it (and be checked in the same manner as a school) and private schools would be subject to heavy regulation that would see them providing -- essentially -- an identical curriculum to public schools, only at more cost.

so would one be completely unable to teach their children gardening, birdwatching, studying the local flora, or martial arts completely? Or would one require a license to teach a child such information? Or any information outside of the 5 or so things that public school teaches?

'Homeschooling' isn't as limited and oppressive as you assume it is (it can be, but it is not inherent to the task).

[The Free Joy State]

homeschooling would be so strictly regulated that only fully-qualified educators would be allowed to do it (and be checked in the same manner as a school) and private schools would be subject to heavy regulation that would see them providing -- essentially -- an identical curriculum to public schools, only at more cost.

so would one be completely unable to teach their children gardening, birdwatching, studying the local flora, or martial arts completely? Or would one require a license to teach a child such information? Or any information outside of the 5 or so things that public school teaches?

'Homeschooling' isn't as limited and oppressive as you assume it is (it can be, but it is not inherent to the task).

Firstly, public schools teach children more than just five things. In addition to the various subjects, there are a lot of transferable skills gained.

Second, I am referring to the school curriculum (English, Mathematics, Science, History, Geography, Religious Education, Languages...); things where being taught to an objective standard by a qualified person in a manner as unbiased as possible is highly beneficial -- not general activities that can be undertaken at the weekend by non-experts like birdwatching.

Finally, if martial arts can be taught without licensing, that's frankly concerning. As that's also something that requires a specific level of proficiency.

[Geneviev]

homeschooling would be so strictly regulated that only fully-qualified educators would be allowed to do it (and be checked in the same manner as a school) and private schools would be subject to heavy regulation that would see them providing -- essentially -- an identical curriculum to public schools, only at more cost.

so would one be completely unable to teach their children gardening, birdwatching, studying the local flora, or martial arts completely? Or would one require a license to teach a child such information? Or any information outside of the 5 or so things that public school teaches?

'Homeschooling' isn't as limited and oppressive as you assume it is (it can be, but it is not inherent to the task).

If gardening or birdwatching are the only things children learn, that would be a problem and should be regulated. They need to learn languages and math and things like that as well.

Some schools are able to provide computers and Internet access. It depends on funding, though, and there's not nearly enough right now.

Also, good education for all will be a fantasy for the foreseeable future as public education is not able to survive everything that is happening.

I think it will survive (whether it would continue to survive under another four years of the same Administration...), but remain woefully underfunded.

A very powerful and important point. Surely this is the point where internet access is an essential basic need for every child?

I think we are getting to the point where that is the case. Definitely, once a child gets to the age where they have a lot of work to do at home. I know we're seeing it in the UK, children without a device/internet access being left behind in their schoolwork.

The ideal would be if schemes were available to families with school-aged children for exceedingly low-priced internet and, perhaps, the loan of a device for the duration of the academic-year. I'm aware there's a UK charity that's refurbishing donated laptops and donating them to schools, and I think that that's what will probably end up having to happen on the other side of the pond, too.

Though, I think it a pity that charities are having to step into a space that is the government's concern: ensuring the equal educational opportunity of children.

The government, at least here, doesn't care much about education. That's part of the reason that they support charter schools, because they divert public funding from public schools to privately run schools. Public schools that already were struggling because of those decisions won't survive the coronavirus. Especially with Trump threatening to withhold federal funding from the public schools that can't reopen. I know my school has already warned that it's likely to close, and it will happen to other public schools as well.

As for Internet access, I know of a few schools that loaned computers to students, and Spectrum provided low-cost Internet. But those things were only temporary for the school closures, and they won't be done when schools reopen.

[Red Intria]

I think our views aren't actually that much different; I believe all children should be home-schooled regardless whether or not they are also educated via public or private means. The public system in North America, is insufficient to teach kids what they need to know. That doesn't mean it needs to be abolished; it means it needs a supplement. You guys think this supplement needs far more regulation than I do (parents research the backgrounds of babysitters, I don't see why they wouldn't for a martial arts instructor), but that is not an insurmountable difference.

The advantage of home-schooling is that it is independent of the public budget, which fluctuates depending on an area's political situation.

I'm not saying birdwatching or martial arts should replace the obviously important skills of language and math, those are just two examples of valuable skills that are ignored by public education.

A society that actively encourages all parents to homeschool, in at least some way, will benefit - many homes are dual-income or single parent, these families have great difficulty finding the time to do any home schooling at all. By encouraging, instead of maligning it, more families will find ways to make the time, and build up social groups that revolve around the practice.

When looking at the obesity and suicide rates of our adolescents, we are failing them miserably. I see more homeschooling as a way to counter this. Not the only way, of course.

[Parnassus]

The biggest problem with education in the US is that it's capitalized (monetized), like almost everything else. The entire system is set up to make money and to stratify students into occupational hierarchies. We see that as its only value. No one wants to "invest" in an actual education. They want to buy a better (by which they mean better paying) job. We've been pushing STEM classes for years now, with the understanding that "science" actually means computer and medical skills, without any understanding that science is a way of thinking about and approaching the world. That kind of science is routinely dismissed (particularly by the far right) as "liberal indoctrination". It's also not solved the problem of just how uneducated the US in general is.

What we need is the exact opposite, a humanities (critical thinking, art, music, literature, history, philosophy) focus. Without that, i.e. if we just keep seeing and treating education like job training, public education, as education, is going nowhere.

This is the biggest problem with "free college". It would be great if we educated people for free, but we're educating in the wrong way.

[Shanghai industrial complex]

The biggest problem with education in the US is that it's capitalized (monetized), like almost everything else. The entire system is set up to make money and to stratify students into occupational hierarchies. We see that as its only value. No one wants to "invest" in an actual education. They want to buy a better (by which they mean better paying) job. We've been pushing STEM classes for years now, with the understanding that "science" actually means computer and medical skills, without any understanding that science is a way of thinking about and approaching the world. That kind of science is routinely dismissed (particularly by the far right) as "liberal indoctrination". It's also not solved the problem of just how uneducated the US in general is.

What we need is the exact opposite, a humanities (critical thinking, art, music, literature, history, philosophy) focus. Without that, i.e. if we just keep seeing and treating education like job training, public education, as education, is going nowhere.

This is the biggest problem with "free college". It would be great if we educated people for free, but we're educating in the wrong way.

Humanities not have real critical thinking.Mathematics, physics, chemistry and other disciplines really have the spirit of science and critical spirit.It was Newton and countless scientists who created modern society.

[Parnassus]

Humanities not have real critical thinking.Mathematics, physics, chemistry and other disciplines really have the spirit of science and critical spirit.It was Newton and countless scientists who created modern society.

Science has the spirit of science... ?

You're also missing the fact that modern Western science directly inherits its way of thinking from 17th century philosophy.

[KingFerdinand1]

The Future Of Everything Is The Better And More Efficient Private Market So Thats Where Educations Future Is.

[Shofercia]

This is mainly a thread about the state of public education in America. Its public education system faces a number of challenges, which contribute to American students receiving lower scores on international examinations than those from other countries. According to Public School Review, these problems include large classes, poverty, a lack of technology, bullying and other problems with students, an emphasis on standardized testing, and budget cuts. For these reasons and others, many parents are choosing to educate their children differently with homeschooling, online schools, private schools, and charter and magnet schools. These are becoming more popular, and are encouraged by the federal government at the moment. Considering the current coronavirus crisis, they may even be forced to replace public education as it faces more budget problems.

What do you say, NSG? Will public education survive against other alternatives? Should it continue, or are any specific alternatives a better option for America?

In my opinion, public education is more reliable than other alternatives because it is less likely to be biased or teach something that is wrong, whereas others are less regulated and can have bias. For that reason, it should be protected and improved. However, I don't believe that that is possible if there are more budget cuts.

So I looked up class sizes, and 24's a good class size, whereas the US is at 27. It's not stellar, but hardly a massive outlier. Poverty's an issue, and that's because we do everything to hurt the nuclear family, failing to give proper maternity leave benefits, to putting black daddies in jail, to perpetuating a system of welfare focused on maintenance rather than improvement. Lack of technology - I wonder which lobbyist wrote that in there. We have more technology today than Europe did in the late twentieth century, and yet their schools thrived.

Bullying comes from weakening teacher actions, i.e. weakening what they can do to a bully, and unstable communities, perpetuated by a system of maintenance rather than advancement. Good schools have no issues with standardized testing, and so taking away a test isn't going to make or break a school. On the other hand, tying funds to testing can hurt the school, as it makes the rich, richer, and the poor, poorer. And budget cuts, yeah, about that: cut administrative positions and pensions. Let me give you an example:



When you're spending that much on pensions, you have little else for schools. I think that in the online age, homeschooling and charter schools are the best options for kids, but teachers unions will fight it to the death, because it means that their pensions are going to be cut.

[Romextly]

A free, accessible public education system is of vital importance. The U.N. states that all children and young people have a right to an education.

In an ideal world, public schools would be better funded and encouraged as the primary form of education for all children, for (to paraphrase the OP) it is not prone to bias in the manner private, less-supervised forms are, and all staff are highly educated; homeschooling would be so strictly regulated that only fully-qualified educators would be allowed to do it (and be checked in the same manner as a school) and private schools would be subject to heavy regulation that would see them providing -- essentially -- an identical curriculum to public schools, only at more cost.

My reverie over, I see U.S. private schools remaining subject to limited restriction, and public schools remaining highly underfunded for the foreseeable future, and homeschooling continuing to vary by state.

Still, the dream was nice.

The best solution would be an online public school system, like an open university, to support home schooling and as back up for any future pandemics alongside the public education system.

Technically, I think in order for that to happen, every child would need access to their own device and the internet (more than 9 million American children still lack internet access at home, and 11 million don't have a computer for school-work; this number doesn't include the number that share a device).

Bias goes both ways

[Dollystana]

The biggest problem with education in the US is that it's capitalized (monetized), like almost everything else. The entire system is set up to make money and to stratify students into occupational hierarchies. We see that as its only value. No one wants to "invest" in an actual education. They want to buy a better (by which they mean better paying) job. We've been pushing STEM classes for years now, with the understanding that "science" actually means computer and medical skills, without any understanding that science is a way of thinking about and approaching the world. That kind of science is routinely dismissed (particularly by the far right) as "liberal indoctrination". It's also not solved the problem of just how uneducated the US in general is.

What we need is the exact opposite, a humanities (critical thinking, art, music, literature, history, philosophy) focus. Without that, i.e. if we just keep seeing and treating education like job training, public education, as education, is going nowhere.

This is the biggest problem with "free college". It would be great if we educated people for free, but we're educating in the wrong way.

Yes, this country is in the wrong direction because nobody wants to learn.

[Romextly]

The biggest problem with education in the US is that it's capitalized (monetized), like almost everything else. The entire system is set up to make money and to stratify students into occupational hierarchies. We see that as its only value. No one wants to "invest" in an actual education. They want to buy a better (by which they mean better paying) job. We've been pushing STEM classes for years now, with the understanding that "science" actually means computer and medical skills, without any understanding that science is a way of thinking about and approaching the world. That kind of science is routinely dismissed (particularly by the far right) as "liberal indoctrination". It's also not solved the problem of just how uneducated the US in general is.

What we need is the exact opposite, a humanities (critical thinking, art, music, literature, history, philosophy) focus. Without that, i.e. if we just keep seeing and treating education like job training, public education, as education, is going nowhere.

This is the biggest problem with "free college". It would be great if we educated people for free, but we're educating in the wrong way.

I hate how people are so exited about having "free college", but all that it will do is cause a massive surge of taxes which will decrease productivity

[Parnassus]

I hate how people are so exited about having "free college", but all that it will do is cause a massive surge of taxes which will decrease productivity

I can't tell if that's satirical or just proving my point.

[Romextly]

I hate how people are so exited about having "free college", but all that it will do is cause a massive surge of taxes which will decrease productivity

I can't tell if that's satirical or just proving my point.

It is proving your point

[Parnassus]

It is proving your point

Ah, but not in the way I was thinking. I originally read your response as a "people think" followed by your opinion on the "people think" part. Now I see that it was a flat statement. Sorry about that.

[Greed and Death]

The biggest problem with education in the US is that it's capitalized (monetized), like almost everything else. The entire system is set up to make money and to stratify students into occupational hierarchies. We see that as its only value. No one wants to "invest" in an actual education. They want to buy a better (by which they mean better paying) job. We've been pushing STEM classes for years now, with the understanding that "science" actually means computer and medical skills, without any understanding that science is a way of thinking about and approaching the world. That kind of science is routinely dismissed (particularly by the far right) as "liberal indoctrination". It's also not solved the problem of just how uneducated the US in general is.

What we need is the exact opposite, a humanities (critical thinking, art, music, literature, history, philosophy) focus. Without that, i.e. if we just keep seeing and treating education like job training, public education, as education, is going nowhere.

This is the biggest problem with "free college". It would be great if we educated people for free, but we're educating in the wrong way.

I prefer our system and to a degree would be willing to make it free (though limit government payments to the top 25% or so of high school classes). Our system offers the most bang for its buck on how it improves people's income earning potential. Paying for people to go to school to critical think about how thy are poor and will unlikely never be able to get out of being poor because they majored in the humanities doesn't seem like it would produce return on investment, it also increases the likelihood of unrest as people rebel against the organization of society.

Systems do not last long by educating people to hate the system they are in.

[Parnassus]

I prefer our system and to a degree would be willing to make it free (though limit government payments to the top 25% or so of high school classes). Our system offers the most bang for its buck on how it improves people's income earning potential. Paying for people to go to school to critical think about how thy are poor and will unlikely never be able to get out of being poor because they majored in the humanities doesn't seem like it would produce return on investment, it also increases the likelihood of unrest as people rebel against the organization of society.

Systems do not last long by educating people to hate the system they are in.

That's what I'm saying: this is how the education system in the US does work. And that if this is the system we maintain, then "education" in the US is going nowhere, by design. We should be educating people. Instead we're giving the illusion that we're educating people, in order to maintain the status quo. To me, (and to be clear, I'm not saying that this is what you said or want), it smacks of "teach a slave to read and they start getting uppity". Some systems need to be overthrown.

[The Reformed American Republic]

Maybe we should federalize the whole thing. It would probably help with eliminating the problem of poor areas having badly funded schools.

[Shanghai industrial complex]

Humanities not have real critical thinking.Mathematics, physics, chemistry and other disciplines really have the spirit of science and critical spirit.It was Newton and countless scientists who created modern society.

Science has the spirit of science... ?

You're also missing the fact that modern Western science directly inherits its way of thinking from 17th century philosophy.

yes,And most of the philosophers were mathematicians and physicists,not Humanities in 17th .Leibniz,Descartes,Gassend,Marin Mersenne,Blaise Pascal and Newton .Even Kant was an astronomer,He hypothesized that the solar system originated in nebulae.

[Red Intria]

yes,And most of the philosophers were mathematicians and physicists,not Humanities in 17th .Leibniz,Descartes,Gassend,Marin Mersenne,Blaise Pascal and Newton .Even Kant was an astronomer,He hypothesized that the solar system originated in nebulae.

I could be wrong, but I'd bet that all of those esteemed gentlemen learned the Trivium (grammar,logic and rhetoric) before the Quadrivium (Astronomy, Arithmetic, Music, and Geometry). Classical Education knew how important it was to ensure students knew how to think. Modern Education focuses on what to think.

Our current system does not encourage people to become thriving entrepreneurs, but wage slaves.

Want to reduce racism and income inequality? Teach the Trivium to low-income students as young as possible.

[Greed and Death]

I prefer our system and to a degree would be willing to make it free (though limit government payments to the top 25% or so of high school classes). Our system offers the most bang for its buck on how it improves people's income earning potential. Paying for people to go to school to critical think about how thy are poor and will unlikely never be able to get out of being poor because they majored in the humanities doesn't seem like it would produce return on investment, it also increases the likelihood of unrest as people rebel against the organization of society.

Systems do not last long by educating people to hate the system they are in.

That's what I'm saying: this is how the education system in the US does work. And that if this is the system we maintain, then "education" in the US is going nowhere, by design. We should be educating people. Instead we're giving the illusion that we're educating people, in order to maintain the status quo. To me, (and to be clear, I'm not saying that this is what you said or want), it smacks of "teach a slave to read and they start getting uppity". Some systems need to be overthrown.

We are at least trying to teach everyone to read I assure you. We are teaching them the basic concepts of math. Once we have provided those two tools they have the ability to gain any knowledge or skill they desire with or without the education system.

Even if university is free why give up 4 years of your prime earning potential unless you are gaining a piece of paper to gain better earning potential ? To retire less comfortably ? To be miserable and revolt and reproduce the exact same society we already have ?

[Parnassus]

yes,And most of the philosophers were mathematicians and physicists,not Humanities in 17th .Leibniz,Descartes,Gassend,Marin Mersenne,Blaise Pascal and Newton .Even Kant was an astronomer,He hypothesized that the solar system originated in nebulae.

No. They were natural philosophers.

[Parnassus]

... why give up 4 years of your prime earning potential unless you are gaining a piece of paper to gain better earning potential ? To retire less comfortably ? To be miserable and revolt and reproduce the exact same society we already have ?

Just proving my point - the reason the education system in the US will never change for the better is that for Americans it's always, always about money. The point of educating yourself about the human condition is to better understand and improve the human condition. If you have no idea how and why social institutions or ideologies develop, then you, and your descendants (if a person has those) will always be enslaved by them.

[An Alan Smithee Nation]

What we need is to develop a teaching app/teacher expert system/teacher AI, whatever you choose to call it, that can give each student the individual attention that good teacher's would provide if they didn't have classes of 30 or more. Not to replace teachers but to help both teachers and students.

[Nobel Hobos 2]

What we need is to develop a teaching app/teacher expert system/teacher AI, whatever you choose to call it, that can give each student the individual attention that good teacher's would provide if they didn't have classes of 30 or more. Not to replace teachers but to help both teachers and students.

You'll need strict limits on what the teaching AI can do.
If it starts playing parent, both the teacher and the biological parent just lost another kid.