Exactly...the one thing I have learned as I have a young son going through school, is what determines if a school is good or not is purely local circumstances. The more outside distractions from the state and feds, the worse it gets!
All “education” should be local ONLY and controlled by the parents. Taxes should only go to the area-—and very few taxes should be needed for the excellent one-room type of “education” teachers need for Classical education.
There should be no media in schools until after age 13 years——like in the Waldorf schools. Looking at screens and pressing buttons destroys the integration and creativity of the brain and creates lazy, conformist minds.
We need Common Sense RETURNED which only comes from the Natural environment and self-initiated human interactions where children learn Virtue skills which have to be mastered BEFORE academic Classical Education can be mastered. It is why no children prior to age 8 were sent to SCHOOL prior to John Dewey, the atheist Humanist lowered the age for mass indoctrination.
Brilliant minds like JS Mill and Galileo, Lincoln were taught by their fathers or mothers AT HOME in REAL LIFE situations (Common Sense).
The Bible was memorized in early childhood (abstract thinking will be possible and with large vocabulary) and they mastered real life skills (work ethic) which taught true self-esteem and Virtue (that which is needed for Freedom).
Galileo helped his mathematician father set up experiments when he was a small child-—and helped him keep track of results....so did Franklin who worked and knew how to read before he entered “school” at 8 and quit at 12 to work.
They all learned to read and were rabid readers of the Great Books and history of the Ages.....from Ancient Greek times to their present time. They learned all the greatest ideas of Western Civ in four to six years TOTAL——and they were SO MUCH SMARTER than ALL PhD grads today.
Schools today destroy Virtue, destroy “thinking outside the box”, destroy Common Sense (as GK Chesterton and CS Lewis stated) because they removed children too early from the Natural Family to create emotionally unhealthy children-—who will be programmed to be “group thinkers”.
Individualism only comes from Christianity and the Natural Family——Inca minds/tribal minds are created by socialism and dependency forced onto little children in early years when they should be developing autonomy in their family unit which caters to individualism (that which made America Great-—along with Christian Virtues).