We have absolutely **NO NO NO*** idea how well our nation's socialist system of school is doing or has done. Why?
Answer: Because NO studies have ever been done to determine how much is learned by the student due to **afterschooling** as compared to that knowledge acquired in the classroom.
Without this information, any judgments about how good or bad U.S. schooling may or may not be is complete supposition.
It is my anecdotal observation ( professionally working with several thousand families over 30 years in a field unrelated to education) that there is **NO** difference in the amount of time that academically successful students ( institutionalized or homeschooled) spend in formal studies in the **home**! Both of these families who successfully homeschool or institutionalize their children have the same value for education, similar home habits, well-functioning discipline practices, monitor friendships, take education trips and vacation, fill their homes with books and magazines, are quick to spot and resolve learning problems, and **control** electronic media use.
So?...If institutionalized kids and homeschoolers, who are academically successful, are doing the same things, and those families ( homeschooling or institutionalizing) with children with poor outcomes are not doing these things, then how can we credit socialist schooling with anything except wasting most of the child's waking day and a lot of tax dollars?
If all government schools were to close tomorrow, the **same** children who are getting an education today would get one tomorrow, because it is the parents and the child himself who is pulling together an education on their own in the home and from friends, family, and private tutoring. I conclude that our nation's socialist schools are merely sending home a curriculum and textbooks for the parents and child to follow.
Honestly....We, as taxpayers are paying up to more than $20,000 per year per child in some states and we ***DO NOT KNOW** if our socialist schools actually teach anything because afterschooling has NEVER been measured. Wow!
( Yeah! I am shouting. $11,000 to $25,000 per child per year is something to shout about, especially when institutionalizing the child in some of these hellish schools actually does more harm than good~!)
If the dust settles, we can talk about how computers and virtual reality software should enable anyone to attend any college course online with the same quality of education as those who attend in person, also $100mo.