As Mark Twain understood, there is a profound difference between schooling and education. American public schooling is an investment in the profits of a raft of private corporations, such as Pearson, and in the interests of a number of non-profit players, such as teachers' unions, all of them centered on the needs and wishes of adults. Implied in your brief statement is belief in a bit of nonsense oft-repeated by those left-of-center: that we have free public schools because children have a right to education. In reality, one cannot have a "right" to something that he does not also have the right to refuse. (We wouldn't refer to a "right" to abortion if every woman had to get one.) Children do not have the right to refuse American "education," so it is therefore not a right but a state enforced obligation. If you want to see education that is NOT the product of coercion, you have to look at the unschooling movement and other alternatives to compulsory, industrial schooling. Like you, I support public investment in children's learning. That's not what we have.
As Mark Twain understood, there is a profound difference between schooling and education. American public schooling is an investment in the profits of a raft of private corporations, such as Pearson, and in the interests of a number of non-profit players, such as teachers' unions, all of them centered on the needs and wishes of adults. Implied in your brief statement is belief in a bit of nonsense oft-repeated by those left-of-center: that we have free public schools because children have a right to education. In reality, one cannot have a "right" to something that he does not also have the right to refuse. (We wouldn't refer to a "right" to abortion if every woman had to get one.) Children do not have the right to refuse American "education," so it is therefore not a right but a state enforced obligation. If you want to see education that is NOT the product of coercion, you have to look at the unschooling movement and other alternatives to compulsory, industrial schooling. Like you, I support public investment in children's learning. That's not what we have.