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If all public schools were magically **poofed** away, this is what would happen.

The children of dedicated parents would receive a first class education, and would go on to adulthood to incredible success.

Millions of children of uncaring parents would no longer attend any type of school at all, and would stay home with Mom and the TV (babysitter)

Millions of children of mediocre parents would recieve a very mediocre and spotty education and would eventually enter the work-force at the earlier possible opportunity.

So, at the best case scenario, about 15% of the children would be well educated, maybe another 15% with a sub-standard education, but passable, 15% with the most possible base literacy (think ability to recognize name, environmental print) with the remainder 100% illiterate. Worked into the latter would be a small percentage of children who, altough illiterate, woudl still have marketable skills, so their literacy wouldn't be quite as damming.

First downside? At 18 all of the above are able to vote - think they are going to vote for less government and lower taxes? Nope, not a chance. Second downside? Over half of the population with no marketable skills, living on the government dime. In two generations, we'd see the result.

Bread and circuses...bread and circuses.

However....it is true that in the short term, those of us with no school age children would potentially see a large increase in our available income assusming that local systems would return this to us.

As far as myself..I'd have work before the day was out probably making pretty close to what make now. So I'd be fine, as would any future grandchildren, as I'd be part of their education. Of course, we would would have long ago moved, maybe to Australia,

So, at the best case scenario, about 15% of the children would be well educated, maybe another 15% with a sub-standard education, but passable, 15% with the most possible base literacy (think ability to recognize name, environmental print) with the remainder 100% illiterate.

Isn't that what we have now?

First downside? At 18 all of the above are able to vote - think they are going to vote for less government and lower taxes? Nope, not a chance. Second downside? Over half of the population with no marketable skills, living on the government dime. In two generations, we'd see the result. Bread and circuses...bread and circuses.

Isn't that what we have now?

By the way....I repeatedly asked "educators" for links to the research papers that show **exactly** where and how a child acquires his knowledge. No one has ever provided those links.

So?...Why do we automatically assume any learning happens in any institutional school? Perhaps the only things institutional schools do is send home a curriculum for the parents and child to follow in the **HOME**, and administer tests, and grade projects done in the **HOME**.

It is possible that, except for the rare exception, academically successful children are successful because they are homeschooled or afterschooled. The institutional school may actually retard their spiritual, social, emotional, and educational development.

Where are the studies? I would think that as "educators" one of the **first** things they would want to know is where and how a child acquires his knowledge and who or what is doing the actual teaching ( child?, parent?, textbook? library?).

Millions of children of uncaring parents would no longer attend any type of school at all, and would stay home with Mom and the TV (babysitter)

I disagree with that prediction. I think that, if the other choice were having their own children at home with them all the time, many parents would make the decision to send them to school, either paying for it themselves (as they do for private daycare now) or applying for charity.

The charity might well come with provisions that the parents improve themselves, or at least support their children's education, with positive results for two generations.