I get what you're trying to say, but it isn't based on reality. I can point you to plenty of public schools and districts that do a very good job of educating students.
The goals of our public school system are so anti-American, and their means so unnatural and damaging to children, that I cannot fathom why anyone who's aware of them would condemn his children to such a fate.
The goals of individual public schools and districts reflect the goals of the surrounding communities. Nothing more, nothing less. Personally, I'd be happy to send my son to several of the school districts here in the DC area and would be thrilled if he went to certain schools (such as Thomas Jefferson in Northern Virginia or Bethesda-Chevy Chase in Maryland).
Some book about what may be some abstract goal of public education is meaningless. You have to look at each school and district and evaluate them individually.
I understand your point. But if someone argued that there are some “good” communist systems, or some “good” dictators, I suspect you’d take objection to such claims.
See, the “good” is often superficial, while the real damage is deep and insidiously hidden.
- Kid graduates high school knowing how to read? Must be a “good” school.
- Kid doesn’t get shot or stabbed or hooked on dope? “Good” school.
- Kid graduates with honors and a scholarship to a notable university? “Good” school.
Nevermind what “schooling” did to the young man or woman. The above are the criteria we’ve been handed, so they’re the ones we use to determine whether the amputation..err..school experience was a “good” one.
Some things do such destruction to the person, such crippling damage, that we’ll settle for the satisfaction of a shallow but pleasant veneer. Good job, nice house, comfortable car... What do we care that our children were contorted and constrained and disfigured into grotesque semblances of life - LIFE as in Solomon’s and Aristotle’s “telos”.
Like harpies, we rob them and let them be robbed of all the true good that childhood lays before them as a smorgasborg. Like Oriental women who cram their feet into tiny shoes to make them small and dainty, we cram our children into pre-defined courses of life. And if they ever escape the cave, they’ll curse us. But I digress. :-)
At one time I agreed with you 100%, and argued the same points you make. Thanks to a FReeper whose “about” page I came across a few years ago (which had a couple links to Gatto’s writings) - and a few other resources besides - I’m now aware of what our public schools do and why they do it. Much makes sense now which didn’t before. (Such as why Ritalin is such a goldmine, for instance.)
You might be right if all teachers didn’t come from schools of education, all curriculum from the same few sources, and all schools didn’t have to meet the same standards. As it is, the local control stuff is like the deck chairs on the Titanic - a nice touch, but really kind of irrelevant considering the ship is doomed.