Google "Balkanization" and see what that is, and what that would do to this country.
Its sounds nice to have everyone marching to a different drummer, but its a hell of a poor way to organize a parade...
This country does not need thousands of enclaves, each teaching their own dogma and opposing all others. But that is exactly what you are advocating.
And you know where it all started going downhill? When the draft was canceled. Prior to that young folks from all over the country were taken out of their home environments and given a basic education in US history and values, and shown a bit of the world for contrast.
And the Balkanization you are advocating will make a bad situation much worse. You should think it over and see if that's really what you want.
if I wanted a “parade,” I would’ve marched at Obama’s inauguration. Damn straight, I want more federalism and more freedom.
The balkanization is largely owning to the the effort of the schools to alienate kids from their parents. The mission of the schools is now to force kids into post-modernism, which posits a world without truth but paradoxically a “correct” way of looking at it. Many people see them as teaching “values” that are the opposite of what they—the parents— were taught at home and in school. For instance the homosexual agenda, which seems to have been adopted wholesale by our social elites, is now being incorporated in school agenda, and all opposition is treated as bigotry. Christian symbols are proscribed but Muslim symbols are embraced. Traditional American history is being abandoned in favor of a history that fits the agenda of liberal pressure groups. The very notion of an American nationality is under attack. Pretty soon Spanish will become the second language in the schools, and we are likely to see repeated in the United States what has occured in Canada.
instead of...
This country has ONE enclave, teaching IT'S own dogma and opposing all others. THIS is exactly what we have now.
"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him march to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."
That used to sum up the American Experience;as summarized by the quintessential American Philosopher, Henry David Thoreau. In his day, schools all over the nation were organized, run and funded by local communities. They had no standardized curriculum, other than the Blue-Backed Speller, and the Bible, and a far greater percentage of children were home schooled, or even not schooled at all. Incidentally, they all learned nothing but creationism.
A national military, to which all could be inducted, was unheard of. According to your premise, we should have had disruption and chaos, ; yet these were the schools that produced American greats like Jefferson, Lincoln, and the other founders. Andrew Carnegie, who basically industrialized America, was a Scottish immigrant with very little formal education. That was the system, full of the chaos of many different groups, that produced American greatness and prosperity. That parade, though it would be unorganized in your book, was the parade that carried America to greatness, and millions to prosperity.
Paradoxically, it's greatness, and it's harmony; sprang up out of disharmony and seeming chaos. Forcing ever more students into the educational collective will not produce either greatness, nor an organized parade; but the very Balkcanization you seek to avoid.
The Soviet Union is the perfect example of what happens when standardization is forced from the top down. You get seeming harmony, while force is applied, often brutally, and the eventual destruction of the entire system.
So what we have is an educational parade dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. No opportunity to excel. No opportunity to think out of the box. Just force fed material that they are expected to vomit back on tests without the need to understand how to apply the material. Sure is a great way to stifle initiative.
This country does not need thousands of enclaves, each teaching their own dogma and opposing all others. But that is exactly what you are advocating.
In respect to the first part, that's exactly what homeschoolers are currently doing and their success in general far outshines anything the public school system does in general. If you feel that that is what's happening, please provide the data to back up your assertion that this would ruin education.
And you know where it all started going downhill?
No, it all started going downhill with the implementation of the graded schools and the elimination of the one room school house and local parental control of the schools in the early 1900's, which interestingly enough, coincided with the Scopes Trial and the beginning of eliminating God from education.
Please, by all means, demonstrate that individualized instruction programs tailored to meet the needs of the students is an inferior way to educate a child. Don't forget to use examples from history like Lincoln, Bowditch, Edison, Curie, to name a few.
And you know where it all started going downhill? When the draft was canceled. Prior to that young folks from all over the country were taken out of their home environments and given a basic education in US history and values, and shown a bit of the world for contrast.
Advocating so much big government control is hardly becoming for someone who calls themselves conservative.
Matter of fact, it's not a conservative position.
Forced government control of education and mandatory draft because it's good for you, whether you know it or not, and whether you like it or not?
Interesting.....