View Full Version : Help From Better Searchers Than I
ShinyTop
12-19-2004, 01:43 PM
I have done some limited Googling for the origins of public schools in this country. I prefer to receive links without political leanings or agendas but know that this might be difficult. :)
Biker
12-19-2004, 02:23 PM
http://www.fee.org/vnews.php?nid=4066
Excellent article here.
ShinyTop
12-19-2004, 02:32 PM
http://www.fee.org/vnews.php?nid=4066
Excellent article here.
Thanks Biker. I had suspected that public schools were not an issue at the time of the Constitution. And I do not question the agendas of those quoted in this piece but I do note that suspicious origins do not define the final product any more than fine goals at the origination of the UN describe its practice today.:)
Biker
12-19-2004, 02:34 PM
I'm finding that at the time the Constitution was written, there was no such thing as a public school. This concept came about with Horace Mann in the early 1800's, as the article suggests.
Techie2000
12-19-2004, 03:00 PM
I still think if we removed the compulsory element of the schools and did nothing else, it would improve things ten-fold.
ShinyTop
12-19-2004, 03:10 PM
Techie, can you imagine the number of children that would be irreparably harmed because they have ignorant parents who do not value education?
Techie2000
12-19-2004, 03:20 PM
Techie, can you imagine the number of children that would be irreparably harmed because they have ignorant parents who do not value education?Yes, but I also imagine how much better it would be for us that do care since the ones who don't would be gone instead of causing distractions in class. I can see keeping it compulsory up to 6th grade for that reason you stated because it is merely learning the basics. However I think past sixth grade it should be free but not compulsory. The only way to not go however is if the kid says he doesn't want to go and the parent agrees. If the kid says no but the parents want him to, he has to go, and if the kid wants to go but the parents don't want him to, he still goes.
LissaKay
12-19-2004, 03:27 PM
Trust 11-12 year olds to make life affecting decisions??? Might as well let them drive, vote, drink, marry and enlist in the military too.
A question ... how would non-compulsory schooling be funded? You can't use taxes to fund something that is optional. Something similar to state colleges where only those from upper-middle class and better can afford to go? Then those taxes not being used for mandatory schooling can go to food stamps, public housing and welfare for those who cannot support themselves on a 6th grade education?
They should have known better, right? Which goes back to my first statement ...
Techie2000
12-19-2004, 03:51 PM
No it would still be taxpayer funded. That would be the incentive for the parents to make their kids go. However if they truely didn't want to go, and the parents were okay with it, then they wouldn't have to. And like I mentioned before, it would tipped so it only works if both the parents and kids approve of not going to school. And of course not completing the entire secondary education would make it so you are not elgible for the social programs. Basically the idea is there are many students who don't want to be at school that go every day and really annoy me. I want to give them the freedom to not be there. I think that changing the mentality from "I have to go to school and it sucks" to "I choose to go to school" would do *a lot* to improve the environment in general.
Actually, that is how it was with my grandparents in Germany. They went until the sixth grade. From there they were farmed out so to speak to a trade. They worked in the business learning a trade from the shop owner. Got a certificate (diploma) in that trade and went on their way. My grandfather was an upholsterer, my grandmother a seamstress, my uncle a tailor.