IMHO, the DOE's problem was promoting the top heavy administrative order of school districts. Of course, making public school equally efficient and standardized in their curricula seems to be impossible. I would think (and perhaps it's just me) that PUBLIC schools would all hold to a standard of excellence measured across the country in every community. Local cultural aspects can be taught and practiced outside the school room (church, sports teams, community picnics/event, parental/family dynamics and histories) What we've got since the one-room schoolhouse was abandoned for the PUBLIC school is a mishmash according to how much money buys what quality of teacher, bossed around by whatever bat-sh*t-crazy school board/PTA is available. Maybe getting rid of the present DOE and starting all over again will help ... maybe. Personally, I vote for homeschool. Rough-and-tumble, nuts and bolts, parental input, non-schooling John Holt homeschools. FIE! Let the chaos begin.
Education in the US has always been this crazy octopus to wrangle so that kids might receive the best education. But the way it was run locally around this nation with school boards thinking more about dogma than diplomas, and the uneven distribution of funding to schools, invariably leads to less than stellar results. If only we had a true dedication to higher learning in this country. Instead, like everything else over the last 40 years, somebody wants to make a quick buck from dishing out educations, be it through dogmatic charter schools, private schools, super expensive colleges, or tax breaks for people without any educational training who think they can do a better job of schooling at home. Don't get me started on home schooling, which can lead to huge gaps in all kinds of knowledge since the home school is only as thorough as the one who leads it.
Anyhow, if the U.S. truly wanted to insure that we had a well educated populace, which in turn benefits the country as a whole, then we'd be spending a hell of lot less money on making the military industrial complex filthy rich and instead invest in education.
But alas, we've sadly reached a country-wide decline which international economists and sociologists have been predicting for 25 years. The rest of this century will see countries like China, Japan, and others excel far above us, thanks to the miserly obtuse minds currently setting up the U.S. for a dismal future.
On the plus side all this ineptitude in our future will make for great comedy gold! Um..correction... dark...very dark, comedy gold.
From my experience, non-schooling is child led. (gasp) Do you remember every single thing you were taught in school? Few of us do. What we do remember is what interested us. All the other stuff was endured and unltimately forgotten over summer vacation. A child who follows their interests learns a wide range of things pertaining to that interest. And it's not really as narrow as some might think. Consider the lessons learned in owning and riding a horse, especially if you keep the horse in a barn with other boarders. Social skills, math and communiction skills, physical and mental skills, close contact with an animal that can stomp the snot out of you. After that crucible, you're readdy to tackle the world. How many public school students do you know who aren't on drugs, who aren't jaded and turned off to learning, who don't have the will or band width to guide their own destinies? What's more, how many kids graduate only to become cannon fodder for the military? Kids come out of schools not able to enter the work force in their communities. But hey, the military is just the place to go for a "career."
Yep. Unfortunately, Americans' educational opportunities have been increasingly limited over the last 25 years due mainly to the aforementioned reasons. One prime example of this is the decrease and elimination of vocational schools. My father was a vocational teacher in upstate NY and these schools offered great opportunities to kids who were otherwise doing badly in traditional school classrooms. The kids learned a good trade and in most case were able to graduate and make more money that many other students who went on to college. When my dad retired he was proud to have had a positive impact on the lives of kids who would had otherwise been in low wage, dead end jobs. Shortly after his retirement, NY state cut the budgets for vocational schools, in part because of budget cuts overall, but also because for-profit shady technical schools (Like Devry Tech) lobbied various politicians. Dad was pretty upset at just how stupid of a move this was and knew it would come back to haunt us. He was right because now our country is in desperate need of people with trade skills.
It's a real shame that Americans have never once bothered to look at educational models outside of our country. Canada, Estonia, Finland, Japan and South Korea are just a few of the countries that have far superior educational systems. As I said previously, a well-educated populace benefits and protects a country far beyond what any military can do.
You've hit the nail, Ed, kind of literally here. When the vocational classes, both industrial and home ec, disappeared, kids failed to learn basic life skills. It floored me one pre-Thanksgiving day in the store where a high school class and their adult units were shopping for items to donate to the food closet for a complete holiday dinner. A pod of them lined up behind me at the check-out. They were completely confused, as if they had NEVER been inside a grocery store. (I do believe other stores have checkouts)
"Are we supposed to go through here?"
"OMG, I'm going to have to do this in six months!"
I thought, between parents too busy at careers and schools too busy catering to the industrial education complex, the Chamber of Commerce, and the real estate people, our country is hosed. Forty years of educated fools graduating with Masters so they can do something higher than sharpen pencils.
And my daughter (bless her heart) responded to my tirade about this with: "But Mom, you never took me to the grocery store. You'd dump me at school and go off on your errands."
HORSEFEATHERS!
Ed, I need a stiff drink. Too bad we don't live closer to each other. 🤪
Excellent! My high school had a few similar oddities. The most memorable was the Civics teacher who was an ex-boxer with a cauliflower ear and (presumably) a TBI. The boys caught on early that if they asked him a question about boxing, the rest of the class would be devoted to his reminiscences, so we could all zone out
IMHO, the DOE's problem was promoting the top heavy administrative order of school districts. Of course, making public school equally efficient and standardized in their curricula seems to be impossible. I would think (and perhaps it's just me) that PUBLIC schools would all hold to a standard of excellence measured across the country in every community. Local cultural aspects can be taught and practiced outside the school room (church, sports teams, community picnics/event, parental/family dynamics and histories) What we've got since the one-room schoolhouse was abandoned for the PUBLIC school is a mishmash according to how much money buys what quality of teacher, bossed around by whatever bat-sh*t-crazy school board/PTA is available. Maybe getting rid of the present DOE and starting all over again will help ... maybe. Personally, I vote for homeschool. Rough-and-tumble, nuts and bolts, parental input, non-schooling John Holt homeschools. FIE! Let the chaos begin.
Education in the US has always been this crazy octopus to wrangle so that kids might receive the best education. But the way it was run locally around this nation with school boards thinking more about dogma than diplomas, and the uneven distribution of funding to schools, invariably leads to less than stellar results. If only we had a true dedication to higher learning in this country. Instead, like everything else over the last 40 years, somebody wants to make a quick buck from dishing out educations, be it through dogmatic charter schools, private schools, super expensive colleges, or tax breaks for people without any educational training who think they can do a better job of schooling at home. Don't get me started on home schooling, which can lead to huge gaps in all kinds of knowledge since the home school is only as thorough as the one who leads it.
Anyhow, if the U.S. truly wanted to insure that we had a well educated populace, which in turn benefits the country as a whole, then we'd be spending a hell of lot less money on making the military industrial complex filthy rich and instead invest in education.
But alas, we've sadly reached a country-wide decline which international economists and sociologists have been predicting for 25 years. The rest of this century will see countries like China, Japan, and others excel far above us, thanks to the miserly obtuse minds currently setting up the U.S. for a dismal future.
On the plus side all this ineptitude in our future will make for great comedy gold! Um..correction... dark...very dark, comedy gold.
From my experience, non-schooling is child led. (gasp) Do you remember every single thing you were taught in school? Few of us do. What we do remember is what interested us. All the other stuff was endured and unltimately forgotten over summer vacation. A child who follows their interests learns a wide range of things pertaining to that interest. And it's not really as narrow as some might think. Consider the lessons learned in owning and riding a horse, especially if you keep the horse in a barn with other boarders. Social skills, math and communiction skills, physical and mental skills, close contact with an animal that can stomp the snot out of you. After that crucible, you're readdy to tackle the world. How many public school students do you know who aren't on drugs, who aren't jaded and turned off to learning, who don't have the will or band width to guide their own destinies? What's more, how many kids graduate only to become cannon fodder for the military? Kids come out of schools not able to enter the work force in their communities. But hey, the military is just the place to go for a "career."
Yep. Unfortunately, Americans' educational opportunities have been increasingly limited over the last 25 years due mainly to the aforementioned reasons. One prime example of this is the decrease and elimination of vocational schools. My father was a vocational teacher in upstate NY and these schools offered great opportunities to kids who were otherwise doing badly in traditional school classrooms. The kids learned a good trade and in most case were able to graduate and make more money that many other students who went on to college. When my dad retired he was proud to have had a positive impact on the lives of kids who would had otherwise been in low wage, dead end jobs. Shortly after his retirement, NY state cut the budgets for vocational schools, in part because of budget cuts overall, but also because for-profit shady technical schools (Like Devry Tech) lobbied various politicians. Dad was pretty upset at just how stupid of a move this was and knew it would come back to haunt us. He was right because now our country is in desperate need of people with trade skills.
It's a real shame that Americans have never once bothered to look at educational models outside of our country. Canada, Estonia, Finland, Japan and South Korea are just a few of the countries that have far superior educational systems. As I said previously, a well-educated populace benefits and protects a country far beyond what any military can do.
BTW I love our dialogs back and forth.
You've hit the nail, Ed, kind of literally here. When the vocational classes, both industrial and home ec, disappeared, kids failed to learn basic life skills. It floored me one pre-Thanksgiving day in the store where a high school class and their adult units were shopping for items to donate to the food closet for a complete holiday dinner. A pod of them lined up behind me at the check-out. They were completely confused, as if they had NEVER been inside a grocery store. (I do believe other stores have checkouts)
"Are we supposed to go through here?"
"OMG, I'm going to have to do this in six months!"
I thought, between parents too busy at careers and schools too busy catering to the industrial education complex, the Chamber of Commerce, and the real estate people, our country is hosed. Forty years of educated fools graduating with Masters so they can do something higher than sharpen pencils.
And my daughter (bless her heart) responded to my tirade about this with: "But Mom, you never took me to the grocery store. You'd dump me at school and go off on your errands."
HORSEFEATHERS!
Ed, I need a stiff drink. Too bad we don't live closer to each other. 🤪
Excellent! My high school had a few similar oddities. The most memorable was the Civics teacher who was an ex-boxer with a cauliflower ear and (presumably) a TBI. The boys caught on early that if they asked him a question about boxing, the rest of the class would be devoted to his reminiscences, so we could all zone out
Ha! Ah yes, the old distraction with war stories tactic! Nice!
I'm surprised the DOE has only existed since '79. You would think it would have been necessary before that...
That's for sure. We probably wouldn't be in such a mess right now if the US populace was a better educated.