ark@alice.UUCP (Andrew Koenig) (12/01/84)
There are really three separate issues to be considered when thinking about education: 1. Should the government be in the school business? 2. Should everyone be required to go to school? 3. Should people be forced to pay for others' education? Question 1 is completely independent of 2 and 3. An answer of "yes" to question 2 implies an answer of "yes" to question 3, because some people would otherwise not be able to pay for their compulsory education. On the other hand, if your answer to question 2 is "no", then you might answer "yes" or "no" to 3. I think any discussion of these issues will be better conceived if it takes this separation into account. Further discussion in net.politics, please.
faustus@ucbcad.UUCP (12/02/84)
> There are really three separate issues to be considered > when thinking about education: > > 1. Should the government be in the school business? > > 2. Should everyone be required to go to school? > > 3. Should people be forced to pay for others' education? Yes to 2. I don't think that the merits of universal literacy need to be brought up -- an end to compulsory education would mean a return to the dark ages. 3 follows from 2, and I think 1 also follows from 2. If anybody has any ideas about how to do this without government support, I'd be happy to hear them. Wayne
wjb@burl.UUCP (Bill Buie) (12/03/84)
At the risk of becoming a target... 1) The simple fact is that in terms of raw ability, all men are NOT created equal. 2) The ideal society allows each man an equal opportunity to rise to his own level of competence. Everybody deserves a chance. There is no way to avoid perpetuating unfairness without public education. Them what has, gets. Note also that it is in the best interests of society in general that the most talented people (as opposed to the people with the wealthiest parents, which isn't the same thing) get the education to be engineers, managers, doctors, etc. If everybody had a fair chance, then everybody would deserve what they got as a result of it. -- --Bill Buie
bnapl@burdvax.UUCP (Tom Albrecht) (12/13/84)
In article <ucbcad.2> faustus@ucbcad.UUCP writes: >> There are really three separate issues to be considered >> when thinking about education: >> >> 1. Should the government be in the school business? >> >> 2. Should everyone be required to go to school? >> >> 3. Should people be forced to pay for others' education? > >Yes to 2. I don't think that the merits of universal literacy need to >be brought up -- an end to compulsory education would mean a return >to the dark ages. 3 follows from 2, and I think 1 also follows from >2. If anybody has any ideas about how to do this without government >support, I'd be happy to hear them. > > Wayne I say no to 2. By compulsory education do you mean compulsory attendance at a day school? A number of educators (John Holt and Raymond Moore among others) have pointed out that literacy in this country has actually declined since the advent of "compulsory education/attendance". If you don't believe me read what these people are saying. We tend to have a rather short-sighted view of education and forget from whence we came. John Adams said in 1765 that "a native of America, especially of New England, who cannot read and write is as rare a Phenomenon as a Comet."[1] We may want to adopt a broader definition of the word "literacy" to include other necessary functionality, but strictly speaking, the 18th and 19th centuries were not what you would call "dark ages". The public schools are, by and large, failing our youth today. Their promises are much more than they can reasonably deliver. My wife and I chose to remove our son from the public schools and educate him ourselves. It wasn't an easy decision, and we certainly are getting a lot of flack from our school officials, but believe me it was well worth it. We have constructed an individualized curriculum for him and he has responded well to the personal attention he is now getting. Home-schooling isn't an option for everyone, but it is one worth looking into if you really care for your child's well-being. [1] Diary and Autobiography of John Adams (L. Butterfield, ed., Cambridge, MA: Harvard U. Press, 1961) -- Tom Albrecht Burroughs Corp. ...{presby|psuvax1|sdcrdcf}!burdvax!bnapl