Sorry I didn't reply sooner, but I'm just starting to emerge from the latest cold.
Anyway, first, I notice that you only answered the least important point, the throw-away line, of my last post. LOL. Why am I not surprised?
The first main point of my post was to show you that by your own words, you agree in a general sense with wintertime - that that the single most important factor in educational success is a child's parents, not the sort of schooling method in use. And thus, even when public schools “succeed,” the real success accrues more to parents than to the schools. That is the premise that sustains the secondary question, why bother with public schools?
The second point is to demonstrate that public schools are suboptimal means of educating children. That they don't always fail, per se, but often fail to get the best results possible.
Not that they always and everywhere fail, but that they seldom help children develop to their highest potential, and more often actually get in the way, become a hindrance to learning.
The bottom line is that public schools just don't usually “add value,” at least not in proportion to their cost. You, yourself, trumpet the fact that you folks can't generally overcome the effects of bad parenting. I agree! So, why go through the expense?
I'm not suggesting, nor have I ever suggested, that everyone should homeschool. At times, I've estimated, optimistically, that as many as half of families could likely be good homeschoolers, if they were to make the effort and the sacrifice. But that leaves the other half.
Nor have I ever said that there is no proper role for government in primary and secondary education.
All I've said is that as currently configured, public schools are usually the worst choice for parents wishing to educate their children. But it is true that for many, the public school is currently the only choice.
At this time in our history, I don't think that Americans are going to make the tough choices needed to fix public schools.
A good place to start would be to ban teachers’ unions and punish and exile from education anyone who advocates for them. Teachers’ unions are intrinsically evil.
Another good starting point would be to abolish (or at least dramatically scale back the size and scope of action of) school system hierarchies, to make each school largely independent, like a charter school, and to encourage private businesses to buy and run most “public schools,” and run them on a competitive basis, with 100% school choice for every parent.
Perhaps providing tax credits to families for each child of school age that equal a high percentage of the average cost of public education would be a good thing to do. So if a school system is spending $20,000 per year per kid, then parents would receive a refundable tax credit of, say, $15,000 per year.
Disadvantage local school boards in running their own “company-owned” schools, giving favor to privately-owned and run “franchises” that obtain funding through the system, however it's configured.
Eliminate by law the bachelors degree for education. It is a fraud. Rather, require that teachers hold at least a four-year degree in the field they'd like to teach, or a related field (At my sons’ high school, there is a teacher with a masters degree in toxicology, requiring him to know a lot of biology and chemistry. Though he holds degrees in neither biology or chemistry, he teaches both subjects. Really well.). Add a course or two on pedagogy and the logistics of managing large numbers of children, especially for primary school teachers. Maintain separate degrees, preferably at a graduate level, for single-school administration.
Get rid of elected school boards. Unify the authority to spend the money (which usually inheres to a school board) with the responsibility to raise the money (which usually resides in an elected town, city or county council). Make the folks who come up with school budgets be directly responsible to the taxpayers for the taxes required to fund the schools.
In other words, blow up the current system, destroy or reduce most of the current hierarchical structures, make folks more directly responsible for their actions, retain the goal of universal access to education, make it competitively-based
I'm not going to do more than provide these few broad brushstrokes, I'm not going to delve into the details, because, frankly, these things just aren't going to happen anytime soon, and I'm not going to waste much of my time on educational fantasies.
For the time being, we're stuck with the system we have. We can, at best, help around the edges. The main goal of folks should be to starve the beast. At every opportunity, with every chance, at every turn, in every decision, take the path that reduces resources to the local public schools.
But public schools aren't really my focus. They mostly suck. They don't harm some kids, but other kids they do harm. They don't get in the way of getting an education for a large number of children, perhaps even a majority of them, but they hinder many and absolutely fail a large minority (at least 30%).
My focus has been on homeschooling, and expanding the space for homeschoolers to operate freely. My goal is to reduce as far as possible government interference in homeschooling, with the ultimate goal of banning governments from exercising any power whatsoever of any sort over homeschooling per se.
My next focus has been on the practical aspects of homeschooling, both in my own family, and in my community and among all homeschoolers.
I'm not anti-traditional schools. I sent my older son to Catholic high school, and my younger son is a junior at the same school. We considered strongly homeschooling through high school, but in balancing the trade-offs, one from the other, we chose a traditional school for their high school years, after having homeschooled from 1st (or in the case of my younger son, from pre-school) through 8th grade.
I'm not even anti-public school. Because, from my vantage point, every parent should first concern him or herself with his or her own children, and what's best for them. And at times, a public school may be the least-bad choice to make, especially where there are the [rare] public schools that have good academic programs and good academic track records.
But to the degree that I think about public education, my view is that the system is very broken, and we could do worse than to just shut down all the public schools and start from scratch.
sitetest
I apologize for the misunderstanding. I largely agreed with what you had written in the previous thread and saw no need to comment further on it. Just as I largely agree with everything in this thread. I have held for a long time that Public schools work well (Not perfect) for the middle 80% the top 10% will do well no matter what, you could drop these kids in the middle of the jungle and they will come out a success. The "bottom" 10 we can do very little with. Whether this is due to lack of motivation, or some hadicapping condition I am not making a distinction.
I do disagree with your above statement for the reasons i outlined in my previous post. I taught at an inner city school. I think your estimation of 50% is very, I would say overly optimistic.
In suburban or rural communities you might be correct. But in the inner cities there are far to many enticements to not get an education already.
Changes MUST be made, but with so many people putting their hands up and saying "not my problem" nothing will get done.
And frankly I bear some of the guilt in this too. I had an opportunity to teach at an inner city school several years back. Instead I chose a rural school district in the middle of Nowhere Va. The money at the inner city was better, a lot better. My wife and I wanted a certain more laid back lifestyle. And I have to admit that I rather enjoy having the students call me Sir, rather than _other_ucker or A--hole. But one thing I know with absolute certainty. When I have to answer to God for my decisions I will be able to say with absolute certainty "I did the most good for the most number of students that I could, not all, but as many as I could."
And that is what it is about for me.