Posted on 12/15/2021 8:04:59 AM PST by karpov
Recent battles over racially divisive curricula prompted Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe to remark, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” But those battles, and the peculiar response that parents are best kept away from the process of educating their children, are signs of a much larger crisis. The gap in perspective between professional educators and the communities they serve about what public education is for has grown unsustainably large.
The gap is most evident, and costly, on the question of what outcome a good education should lead toward. For the current generation of reformers, the answer is simple: a college degree. Embracing this college-for-all mentality, secondary schools have become college-prep academies held accountable to rigorous testing regimes and college-going rates, while policymakers have plowed hundreds of billions of dollars into subsidizing higher education. Leading proposals for “free college” and student-loan forgiveness reinforce those commitments.
American parents disagree. In partnership with YouGov, my organization, American Compass, surveyed 1,000 American parents with a child between the ages of 12 and 30 about their priorities for the public education system. We asked: Which is more important, helping students “maximize their academic potential and gain admission to colleges and universities with the best possible reputations,” or helping them “develop the skills and values to build decent lives in the communities where they live?” By more than two to one, parents chose life preparation over academic excellence.
Uncommon for contentious issues in American life, this opinion holds across all the usual divisions. “Build decent lives” earns 68 percent among Democrats, 69 percent among Republicans, and 77 percent among Independents.
(Excerpt) Read more at city-journal.org ...
Looks like a rubbish article.
Leftist have believed that public schools are for indoctrination since they took them over somewhere around 40 years ago.
“surveyed 1,000 American parents with a child between the ages of 12 and 30”
Oh, are 30-year-olds attending public primary/secondary schools now? Anything is better than getting a job, I suppose.
Seriously, we’re supposed to take this seriously? Why didn’t they survey parents with children between the ages of 5 and 18?
They’re not “public schools”.
They’re “Government schools”.
That was my take, at first glance.
For one thing, the conclusion that “a college degree” should be the goal of public schools/education, is way overly simplistic. So I didn’t read past that.
School reform should be a top GOP priority at the Red state level, but nothing happens.
Everyone know they are glorified babysitting indoctrination centers.
That really needed to be fixed.
They darned sure didn’t ask me. I have a 14 year-old and a 17 year old. Making them decent citizens is MY job. Teaching them how to read and write, about history, science, and math is THEIRS.
Ok, this is just one data point in the survey. Click the link to the actual survey to see the rest of it. This is cherry-picked journalism at its best.
<>The gap is most evident, and costly, on the question of what outcome a good education should lead toward.<>
The first purpose of education in a republic is to instill love of country. No republic is sustainable without such widespread love.
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