Public vs. Private schools

[dmmj]

check out a little film called indoctrinate U and then you can talk about no liberal bias in education.

[alfiethetortoise]

Ahh the old classic debate....

I once had an excellent teacher, called somewhat ironically, Mr Champion. He taught Philosophy and Ethics. HE never imposed his views, and refused to tell us if he was aethist/christian whatever as the didn't want to impose our views. Heused to do this thing called the red rope on current 'red hot' topics. You had to agree or dissagree with the statement, standing at true, faulse of in the middle. All you had to do was justify your answer. He taught in public schools. And every single one of his pupils always wanted to please him, we always worked hard, hit difficult deadlines, and pushed outselves to the limit. He had the best grades in the whole school. He used to say it didn't matter where you come from, or what statistice were held against you "believe and achieve" and you can do anything you want

I went to public schools. At secondry school, my school was in special measures and almost shut down. I still got good A level grades. As a primary school teacher, i am more familiar with budgets and constraints on resoces which however you arge, does have an impact on the learning. I did a short stint in a private school and it was all "take as much as you like out that paper cupboard, and dont use so much white, the kids like coloured". Kids in private schools are open to more resorces, but life experience and quality of learning is still high in the state maintained schools. And in private schools, children end up with (in my opinnion) limited and narrow viewpoints, because generally the teachers and children come from privalaged backgrounds (money mostly). I had a friend, who had very limited views because of this and some of her morals were not consistant (i.e. she did not like sex before marriage, or even boyfriends staying over for weekends even if you had been with them 4 years, but she was quite happy bringing random men home from bars all the time, so long as there was no 'actual' sex).

So, Ava will be going to the local public schools, that i think have served the local community well. And as long as i teach her to "believe and achieve" she can do anything she likes, wether in a state school of public school...

[chadk]

(02-08-2010 06:11 PM)Stephanie Logan Wrote:  universal tax-supported education being one of the founding principles of our democracy,

While it was talked about among certain people, it was hardly a founding principle. Was it in the constitution? Nope.

Our Republic (...and to the Republic, for which it stands ), or representative democracy, did not make tax funded public education a major issue until quite a while after our founding.

http://www.quebecoislibre.org/younkins19.htm

For the first two hundred years in America, from the early 1600s to the early 1800s, public schools were virtually non-existent. Before the 1830s, education was primarily an informal local activity. Private education in early America included the home, church, Catholic and Protestant schools, charity schools for the poor, apprenticeships, private study, and circulating libraries. With the variety of educational systems available to our forefathers, tax-financed schools did not receive much support. For many years, the only strong advocates of state schools in the U.S. were Boston Unitarians who denied Christian teachings and accepted Rousseau's ideas that negative behavior was the result of mis-education rather than due to man's fallen nature.

Although tax-financed common schools existed by the 1830s, most parents continued to send their children to private schools [ including homeschool]. However, the public school agenda of the Unitarians and other elites began to advance with urgency as Catholic immigration, especially from Ireland and Germany, soared in the 1840s and 1850s. Protestants began to fear that Catholic immigrants and the poor would become an unassimilated mass.

Horace Mann, a Unitarian lawyer and legislator, had been appointed secretary of the newly created Massachusetts Board of Education in 1837, the first state board of education in the U.S. During his 12 years as its head, Mann created a unified system of common schools including teacher-training initiatives and dedication to a Utopian vision of perfecting the moral character of the nation's youths. Mann was a die-hard Unitarian moralist who perceived the public school as the cure for social ills and exhibited faith in human goodness given the right education and environment. Mann, an admirer of the Prussian approach to public education, said that closing down prisons would be possible, given a generation of schools according to his prescriptions.

Mann's goal was to establish mechanisms of social control. He advocated a standard curriculum, centralization of public funds, a strongly moral character of instruction, and state leadership in training teachers dedicated to the common school agenda. Mann and his fellow reformers sought to use the state's authority and resources to impose a single ethos on every school in the name of enlightenment and social unity.

...

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Mann's non-denominational approach did incorporate Bible reading (the King James version), daily prayer, and hymns into its activities. Of course, as America became more secularized so did the public schools. Public education in America really began to boom after the Civil War, as government- controlled and funded schools replaced the earlier private education system. The biggest boost for state schools came when states began to enact laws of compulsory attendance.

Catholics felt left out of the public school system. As a consequence, the Catholic parochial school system was established in 1874. Catholics, like the Protestants, Unitarians, and others realized that whoever controls the schools controls the upcoming generation.

....

John Dewey's progressive model of active learning or pragmatism promoted a revolt against abstract learning and attempted to make education an effective tool for integrating culture and vocation. Dewey was responsible for developing a philosophical approach to education called "experimentalism" which saw education as the basis for democracy. His goal was to turn public schools into indoctrination centers to develop a socialized population that could adapt to an egalitarian state operated by an intellectual elite.

Thinking for Dewey was a collective phenomenon. Disavowing the role of the individual mind in achieving technological and social progress, Dewey promoted the group, rather than the teacher, as the main source of social control in the schools. Denying the ideas of universal principles, natural law, and natural rights, Dewey emphasized social values and taught that life adjustment is more important than academic skills.

Dewey explained that the subject matter and moral lessons in the traditional curricula were meant to teach and inspire but were irrelevant to the students' immediate action experiences. The contradiction between the students' real interests and those of the traditional school alienated students from their schoolwork. School-age children were caught between the opposing forces of immature, undeveloped beings and the values, meanings, and aims of subject matter constructed by a mature adult. Dewey believed that students' energy, talent, and potential could not be realized within the structure of an archaic school system.

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During the 20th century, the job of public education was expanded to inculcating moral values, providing nutrition and health, protecting children from psychological and physical abuse, and combating crime and delinquency. Later, additional social and political goals such as racial integration, democratic participation, environmental awareness and activism, and social tolerance were added





The first tax-funded school was pretty early in our history, but it was the exception, not the rule:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dedham,_Massachusetts


The first public meeting was held on August 15, 1636 in which 18 men signed the town covenant. They swore that they would "in the fear and reverence of our Almighty God, mutually and severally promise amongst ourselves and each to profess and practice one truth according to that most perfect rule, the foundation whereof is ever lasting love."

They also agreed that "we shall by all means labor to keep off from us all such as are contrary minded, and receive only such unto us as may be probably of one heart with us, [and such] as that we either know or may well and truly be informed to walk in a peaceable conversation with all meekness of spirit, [this] for the edification of each other in the knowledge and faith of the Lord Jesus…" ...

.... On January 1, 1643, by unanimous vote, Dedham authorized the first taxpayer-funded public school; "the seed of American education."[2] Its first teacher, Rev. Ralph Wheelock, was paid 20 pounds annually to instruct the youth of the community. Descendants of these students would become presidents of Dartmouth College, Yale University and Harvard University.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_...ted_States


[edit] History

First Boston Latin School HouseThe first American schools in the thirteen original colonies opened in the seventeenth century. Boston Latin School was founded in 1635 and is both the first public school and oldest existing school in the United States.[1][2][3][4] The nation's first institution of higher learning, Harvard University, was founded in 1636 and opened in 1638. As the colonies began to develop, many New England colonies began to institute mandatory education schemes. In 1642 the Massachusetts Bay Colony made "proper" education compulsory.[5] Similar statutes were adopted in other colonies in the 1640s and 1650s. Virtually all of the schools opened as a result were private and were initially intended for boys and young men.[citation needed] In the 18th century, common ungraded schools appeared. Although they were publicly supplied, they were not free, and instead were supported by tuition or "rate bills."

[edit] Religion
Religious denominations established most early universities in order to train ministers. In New England there was an emphasis on literacy so that people could read the Bible. Most of the universities which opened between 1640 and 1750 form the contemporary Ivy League, including Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton, Brown, the University of Pennsylvania, and several others.[6] After the American Revolution, the new national government passed the Land Ordinance of 1785, which set aside a portion of every township in the unincorporated territories of the United States for use in education. The provisions of the law remained unchanged until the Homestead Act of 1862. After the Revolution, an emphasis was put on education, especially in the northern states, which rapidly established public schools. The US population had one of the highest literacy rates at the time.[7]

[edit] Public schools
In 1821, Boston started the first public high school in the United States. By the close of the 19th century, public secondary schools began to outnumber private ones.[8] [9]

In 1836, McGuffey Readers appeared. These emphasized morality. Other readers cautioned against sin.[10] These were widely used in elementary schools until the 20th century.

Corporal punishment was used to maintain discipline, expected both by students and parents, at the discretion of the teacher.[citation needed] This practice started to be questioned in mid-century.[11][12] This was widely employed until well into the 20th century. While still permitted in many states in the 21st century, it is rarely used.

Over the years, Americans have been influenced by a number of European reformers; among them Pestalozzi, Herbart, and Montessori.[13]


Colonial schoolhouse in Hollis, New Hampshire[edit] Attendance
The school system remained largely private and unorganized until the 1840s. The first national census conducted in 1840 indicated that of the 1.8 million girls between five and fifteen (and 1.88 million boys of the same age) about 55% attended primary schools and academies.[14] The data tables do not note the actual attendance rates, but only reflect the static numbers at the time of the U.S. census. Beginning in the late 1830s, more private academies were established for girls for education past primary school, especially in northern states. Some offered classical education similar to that offered to boys.

Data from the indentured servant contracts of German immigrant children in Pennsylvania from 1771-1817 showed that the number of children receiving education increased from 33.3% in 1771-1773 to 69% in 1787-1804. Additionally, the same data showed that the ratio of school education versus home education rose from .25 in 1771-1773 to 1.68 in 1787-1804

[Stephanie Logan]

Yes, and then, coincidentally, when tax-funded public schooling became the norm, America exploded on the world stage as an economic superpower. We have one of the best educated populations in the world. The G.I. bill (or Big Government education), which sent WWII veterans to school in massive numbers, is largely credited for the last three generations of American economic, scientific and social success.

You know, I was just thinking about the definitions of liberal and conservative. According to the dictionary, a Liberal is a person who is tolerant of other people's views, and who seeks reform in political, religious or social institutions. A Conservative is a person who supports and defends traditional beliefs and social mores. There is no right vs. wrong, black or white, evil or beseiged. Before the definition was politicized, our Founding Fathers were liberals who followed the "radical" (meaning "anti-monarchy") views of such philoshophers as Locke, Rousseau and Hobbes, which held that human beings were intelligent, thinking creatures who would consent to the rule of law and could govern themselves (which other countries thought was radical, seditious and doomed to failure--another fun fact I love to teach my students ).

Would any of you really want to move to a single party system?

And back to the question of public vs. private schools: do you really think our country will be stronger and more prosperous if we abandon the concepts of taxpayer-funded public schools and universal, compulsory education?

My sister teaches high school science and math in a "blue-collar" district near Fort Carson Army Base. During a recent two-week period, in her Algebra class of 28 students, she had 51 absences. Excused absences. If the parents do not value education, and do not teach their children to value education, schools cannot succeed. No matter how "expensive", no matter if they are public or private, vouchered or chartered.

[chadk]

If a parent actually pays for 'tuition' and feels there is value in what he\she is paying for, you bet the kids will be there. I think that is part of it. The other part is probably more of an issue with dead-beat parents and the kids following in their foot steps.

The founding fathers also believed in God who created all men equally.

Abandon schools? No way. But they need a major overhaul. Are they getting better or worse? Is throwing more money at the problem going to help?

Single party system - no way. Choice and accountability is a much better system...

Liberal, conservative... I don't like labels. I'm conservative in many areas, liberal in others.

[dmmj]

Something given for free has no value to most people. If parents actually had to pay for their kids education I am sure it would be a different story, and the GI bill was not big goverment educayion.

[Stephanie Logan]

David, do you really want only kids whose parents can "pay" for a private education to go to school in this country?

Here's part of an article about the G.I. bill, which was a huge expenditure by a post-war, deeply indebted government, administered by the Veteran's Administration, which is a federal government entity, as an investment in the future even though it increased the national deficit and the national debt:

It has been heralded as one of the most significant pieces of legislation ever produced by the federal government—one that impacted the United States socially, economically and politically. But it almost never came to pass.

The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944—commonly known as the GI Bill of Rights—nearly stalled in Congress as members of the House and Senate debated provisions of the controversial bill.

Some shunned the idea of paying unemployed veterans $20 a week because they thought it diminished their incentive to look for work. Others questioned the concept of sending battle-hardened veterans to colleges and universities, a privilege then reserved for the rich.

Please read the entire article, posted by the Veteran's Administration.

http://www.gibill.va.gov/GI_Bill_Info/history.htm