What's nonsense is jumping to the conclusion that I'm pro-voucher and that I was condemning the ideal of public education and not the system we have. You could have asked, "Do you mean to say public education is an ignoble idea?", but instead you saw an opportunity to rant against vouchers, about which I said NOTHING. So, for the record, my beef is with the industrial school system we have, not the idea of public funding of education. The system we have is a choice (largely molded by the education industry), not the inevitable way schooling has to be designed or managed. It is, in fact, anti-child, ineffective, and expensive, not to mention something of an international joke. The one thing you got right is that the system used to be more effective 60 years ago and prior (though it was never very child-friendly), but you don't appear to understand what happened. To remedy that, I recommend you read "Insult to Intelligence: The Bureaucratic Invasion of Our Classrooms," by Frank Smith. It's old and out of print but he lays out what happened well. The only other critic I know of who understood what Smith did was John Taylor Gatto, whose work would also bring you up to speed and which is easy to find. In his case, I suggest starting with "Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling."
"international joke" - I'm NOT disagreeing with you Megan! But what I do want is detailed, specific, articulated examples of HOW we have become an international joke and on the basis of what exact expectations!!!
Can you articulate any of this stuff in your own words in the span of a single comment??????
Again, you keep naming books, but you have your own Substack and you have unlimited space to explain what you think here, and all you keep doing is making vague references to the work of others while seemingly intentionally avoiding the prospect of explaining exactly what you think is wrong and how to fix it.
You are being SOOOO vague!!
And one last question: You have a few kids, if I understand correctly. Are either or both successful STEM students going for degrees or masters/doctorates in science, technology or engineering/medicine? If so, I am so glad for you, but if not then why? Please explain - and don't misunderstand me: I am equally happy with degrees or just full courses of study in philosophy and the humanities. I just think you're holding people to a different standard and want you to defend it if you're willing.
Megan, if you don't mind, would you please try elaborating on your own understanding of the US public (pre-K12) education system's history from, say, mid WWII to the present? At the same time, could you also articulate what and where things went wrong, in as much detail as possible?
Look, as I mentioned prior, it would be great if it was an acceptable and effective form of debate to simply refer one's interlocutor to a list of books and essays and say "if you just read these things you'd know!" but that isn't how life or debate work. I'm guilty of the same thing as a younger person. I wish I could just say to any stupid American exceptionalist capitalist worshipping moron "GO READ WILLIAM BLUM'S "KILLING HOPE" and you'll know that the US is a FRAUD and HYPOCRITICAL LIAR in terms of who has killed how many people!" - But I know that I can't.
Have you read any or all of Marx? Michael Hudson? Have you read long defenses of the original intent of most US public education defenders? Most likely not. And I'm not faulting you for it.
So please just try to defend or advance your own opinions in your own words here without the cop-out of making it seem like none of us will understand what you're trying to say without reading multiple 300 page book-length treatises on the topic!
Articulate it yourself, and with brevity! Brevity is the soul of effectiveness!!! (Hope you're teaching your kids that in a meaningful way)
You completely misunderstand everything I've said and then you accuse me of being vague. Good grief, you're a piece of work. Read this carefully: American public schools are INDUSTRIAL; they were designed and are managed according to an industrial model. That means standardized everything: age segregation; standardized curriculum for all kids of the same age, no allowance made for aptitudes, interests, etc.; industrial assessments (you know, standardized testing); constant and impersonal grading you'd be stoned for applying to women's appearances, to name a few things. More features that make it a terrible system are: keeping kids indoors most of the day, training them incessantly in obedience, treating free play likes it's completely dispensable, rigidly structuring their day and giving them literally no say in their own education. Do you see ANY problem with any of this? Do you have children? Have you never heard ONE story of a kid who comes home from school in tears? As I said in a different thread, the opposite of industrial education is self-directed education, which is humane and effective. We could have an SDE public school system but the politicians who control the system, and the behemoths like Pearson who control them, won't have it. SDE is trusting and not conducive to jobs, contracts and profits. Fear and distrust, which define the system we have, ARE conducive to money-making and all the rest. That's why it doesn't change. There's too much for adults in the way it is, children's feelings, needs, and interests be damned.
I don't have time for another long reply, but something in the first two sentences stood out. You said our educational system is "INDUSTRIAL" as in standardized. The US public education system did not embrace standardization until the 1980s. What was wrong with it, in principle, before that?
Do you understand what "industrial" means in this context? I laid it all out in my previous comment above. A practice need not be called "standardized" for it to be so, and the organized, compulsory, mass system of education introduced in the U.S. in the 1850s was industrial and standardized from the start. Of course this has only gotten worse with standardized testing taking such a prominent role in the school day, but as I've responded to critics of it before, nothing's more at home in a one-size-fits-all system like ours than standardized testing. I hate them, but they fit right into a model that disallows students any meaningful say whatsoever over their own "education." Now, I'm sure you take for granted that adults should run the entire show, and I've heard it all before. It's nonsense but this is how the left thinks for some reason. If you can defend the thoroughly standardized schools we have, as in the complete opposite of intellectual autonomy, go ahead, but don't piss on me and tell me it's raining, and don't tell me public schools aren't standardized.
You keep using the words "industrialized" and "standardized" without apparently getting the facts that there was no Department of Education or standardized ANYTHING until the NINETEEN-FUCKING-EIGHTIES.
Who gives a fuck? I'm talking about something you do not understand: a kid's experience of school, which was standardized within schools from the get-go. All eight year-olds learn the same thing, from the same textbooks, at the same pace, with the same standardized assessments, which existed even when I went to school back in the 70s. What on earth do you think grades are, you simpleton?! The very fact that kids are herded together based on date of manufacture, as Ken Robinson says, is the very essence of standardized, you twit. Do you for a minute believe a kid cares whether there's a Department of Education or not? You're simply wrong that standardization did not exist until 40 years ago. It's incredible that someone could be so daft and think they're so right. Go away.
Define the "education industry" - Please, I think that will be very telling.
Providing a list of "recommended" reading in the way of long-form books in a comments section is a rather disingenuous or at least sort of unrealistic way to address points. Trust me, I also have a long list of reading material that I wish you and anyone else with whom I exchange comments here or any other online forum would have read in advance.
You make a fair point that YOU didn't raise the topic of vouchers or charter schools; it's just that there is literally no separating those topics from the current state of the education debate in the US right now.
But please try to articulate in your own words, in the here-and-now, why the US public education system, or any government mandated or funded PES, is by its very nature so flawed as to require complete abandonment.
Lastly, so that this may be a more productive exchange - could you please also explain your own political/social philosophy? Are you a libertarian, social democrat, conservative, left-anarcho-libertarian, right-anarcho-libertarian, arch-capitalist, etc? I'm just curious and I think we need to set the terms and understand one another.
Not that it's relevant, but I'm far left though not orthodox. (Did someone say something about critical thinking earlier?) You again made an assumption, this time about my use of the word "abandonment." I didn't say we should stop funding education or dismantle the system. I would truly love to see it torn down completely and reconstituted for the benefit of children and teens, but I'm not delusional. I do encourage parents to abandon the system when they realize it's harming their kids. A parent's first responsibility is to his or her children, period. (My husband and I were able to offer better options to our son, at our expense, not because we're evil Republicans--far from it--but because we didn't own a car then and we lived very simply. He was able to go to schools where they didn't teach him to hate half a dozen disciplines. We're horrible people, I know.) Again, school does NOT have to be industrial and one-size-fits-all. Our school system is the way it is because it benefits adults, and big business, and that's why it doesn't change except to get worse. A publicly funded system could be excellent and humane, but the model found throughout the west is not that. If you don't know enough about alternative education to even be aware of any alternatives, and you don't have even a passing familiarity with what's wrong with our system, then I suggest we suspend the discussion until you've had time to get up to speed. This is not rocket science, or at least it shouldn't be.
Umm, Pearson....? The big publishers that make a killing off brain dead textbooks, test prep, remedial everything, packaged and even more brain dead "curricula," etc...? You know what's telling? How lefties' heads explode when someone dares criticize public schooling. (Not the idea of public funding of education, but the system we have.) I mean, it's not surprising to me because I have no illusions that the left cares about children as a class of people requiring protection and advocacy. Now, I know what you're going to say: "The real villains are the private charter school titans!!!!!!!!" And that I didn't say that will be proof in your mind that I'm a closet Republican, blah, blah, blah. Wrong again. Do I support private charters? No. Do I think they destroyed a glorious system that all of us just ADORED during our own confinement? Get real. I don't need to rant against private charters; there are countless folks like you who would love to do it all day. You have it covered. My time is better spent educating leftwing types about the actual history of public schooling, and the reality of it, and trying to get them to consider education from the perspective of actual children. An uphill battle, to be sure, but an important one.
Megan just tell us. Are you an "anticommunist" anti-Leftist charter school and arch-capitalist supporter? Just say so if you are. It will make this easier moving forward.
"leftwing" - define that for us, please.
And don't let me let you off the hook. I asked you to define "education industry" and you proceeded to say "Pearson" (which is a RIGHT WING organization) and then conflate it with "DA lEfT!!!"
Why don't you just put your money where your actual mouth is. Define some problems in EXHISTING American history courses and let us know how "wrongly" left those lessons lean.
I'll wait. Please be as specific and comprehensive as possible. Tell us how any American state's public ed system is biasing students toward the class conscious or history-realistic "left".... I'll wait.
You're a loon. You don't understand the first thing about what I'm saying and you don't want to. You have literally never heard a critique of public schools from the left. Do you live in a bag?? Clearly you've never been to Brooklyn or any other place where moms and dads come out to pro-Palestine marches after going to their homeschool co-op. This is maddening, even by the standards I'm used to. I'm going to pull a Chang and tell you to work on your reading comprehension before tearing off another hyperventilating rant. And go take a pill.
What's nonsense is jumping to the conclusion that I'm pro-voucher and that I was condemning the ideal of public education and not the system we have. You could have asked, "Do you mean to say public education is an ignoble idea?", but instead you saw an opportunity to rant against vouchers, about which I said NOTHING. So, for the record, my beef is with the industrial school system we have, not the idea of public funding of education. The system we have is a choice (largely molded by the education industry), not the inevitable way schooling has to be designed or managed. It is, in fact, anti-child, ineffective, and expensive, not to mention something of an international joke. The one thing you got right is that the system used to be more effective 60 years ago and prior (though it was never very child-friendly), but you don't appear to understand what happened. To remedy that, I recommend you read "Insult to Intelligence: The Bureaucratic Invasion of Our Classrooms," by Frank Smith. It's old and out of print but he lays out what happened well. The only other critic I know of who understood what Smith did was John Taylor Gatto, whose work would also bring you up to speed and which is easy to find. In his case, I suggest starting with "Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling."
Goodbye Megan. I think you are probably done here unless you can muster a real, genuine, legitimate response to me.
"international joke" - I'm NOT disagreeing with you Megan! But what I do want is detailed, specific, articulated examples of HOW we have become an international joke and on the basis of what exact expectations!!!
Can you articulate any of this stuff in your own words in the span of a single comment??????
Again, you keep naming books, but you have your own Substack and you have unlimited space to explain what you think here, and all you keep doing is making vague references to the work of others while seemingly intentionally avoiding the prospect of explaining exactly what you think is wrong and how to fix it.
You are being SOOOO vague!!
And one last question: You have a few kids, if I understand correctly. Are either or both successful STEM students going for degrees or masters/doctorates in science, technology or engineering/medicine? If so, I am so glad for you, but if not then why? Please explain - and don't misunderstand me: I am equally happy with degrees or just full courses of study in philosophy and the humanities. I just think you're holding people to a different standard and want you to defend it if you're willing.
Megan, if you don't mind, would you please try elaborating on your own understanding of the US public (pre-K12) education system's history from, say, mid WWII to the present? At the same time, could you also articulate what and where things went wrong, in as much detail as possible?
Look, as I mentioned prior, it would be great if it was an acceptable and effective form of debate to simply refer one's interlocutor to a list of books and essays and say "if you just read these things you'd know!" but that isn't how life or debate work. I'm guilty of the same thing as a younger person. I wish I could just say to any stupid American exceptionalist capitalist worshipping moron "GO READ WILLIAM BLUM'S "KILLING HOPE" and you'll know that the US is a FRAUD and HYPOCRITICAL LIAR in terms of who has killed how many people!" - But I know that I can't.
Have you read any or all of Marx? Michael Hudson? Have you read long defenses of the original intent of most US public education defenders? Most likely not. And I'm not faulting you for it.
So please just try to defend or advance your own opinions in your own words here without the cop-out of making it seem like none of us will understand what you're trying to say without reading multiple 300 page book-length treatises on the topic!
Articulate it yourself, and with brevity! Brevity is the soul of effectiveness!!! (Hope you're teaching your kids that in a meaningful way)
You completely misunderstand everything I've said and then you accuse me of being vague. Good grief, you're a piece of work. Read this carefully: American public schools are INDUSTRIAL; they were designed and are managed according to an industrial model. That means standardized everything: age segregation; standardized curriculum for all kids of the same age, no allowance made for aptitudes, interests, etc.; industrial assessments (you know, standardized testing); constant and impersonal grading you'd be stoned for applying to women's appearances, to name a few things. More features that make it a terrible system are: keeping kids indoors most of the day, training them incessantly in obedience, treating free play likes it's completely dispensable, rigidly structuring their day and giving them literally no say in their own education. Do you see ANY problem with any of this? Do you have children? Have you never heard ONE story of a kid who comes home from school in tears? As I said in a different thread, the opposite of industrial education is self-directed education, which is humane and effective. We could have an SDE public school system but the politicians who control the system, and the behemoths like Pearson who control them, won't have it. SDE is trusting and not conducive to jobs, contracts and profits. Fear and distrust, which define the system we have, ARE conducive to money-making and all the rest. That's why it doesn't change. There's too much for adults in the way it is, children's feelings, needs, and interests be damned.
I don't have time for another long reply, but something in the first two sentences stood out. You said our educational system is "INDUSTRIAL" as in standardized. The US public education system did not embrace standardization until the 1980s. What was wrong with it, in principle, before that?
Do you understand what "industrial" means in this context? I laid it all out in my previous comment above. A practice need not be called "standardized" for it to be so, and the organized, compulsory, mass system of education introduced in the U.S. in the 1850s was industrial and standardized from the start. Of course this has only gotten worse with standardized testing taking such a prominent role in the school day, but as I've responded to critics of it before, nothing's more at home in a one-size-fits-all system like ours than standardized testing. I hate them, but they fit right into a model that disallows students any meaningful say whatsoever over their own "education." Now, I'm sure you take for granted that adults should run the entire show, and I've heard it all before. It's nonsense but this is how the left thinks for some reason. If you can defend the thoroughly standardized schools we have, as in the complete opposite of intellectual autonomy, go ahead, but don't piss on me and tell me it's raining, and don't tell me public schools aren't standardized.
You keep using the words "industrialized" and "standardized" without apparently getting the facts that there was no Department of Education or standardized ANYTHING until the NINETEEN-FUCKING-EIGHTIES.
Who gives a fuck? I'm talking about something you do not understand: a kid's experience of school, which was standardized within schools from the get-go. All eight year-olds learn the same thing, from the same textbooks, at the same pace, with the same standardized assessments, which existed even when I went to school back in the 70s. What on earth do you think grades are, you simpleton?! The very fact that kids are herded together based on date of manufacture, as Ken Robinson says, is the very essence of standardized, you twit. Do you for a minute believe a kid cares whether there's a Department of Education or not? You're simply wrong that standardization did not exist until 40 years ago. It's incredible that someone could be so daft and think they're so right. Go away.
Define the "education industry" - Please, I think that will be very telling.
Providing a list of "recommended" reading in the way of long-form books in a comments section is a rather disingenuous or at least sort of unrealistic way to address points. Trust me, I also have a long list of reading material that I wish you and anyone else with whom I exchange comments here or any other online forum would have read in advance.
You make a fair point that YOU didn't raise the topic of vouchers or charter schools; it's just that there is literally no separating those topics from the current state of the education debate in the US right now.
But please try to articulate in your own words, in the here-and-now, why the US public education system, or any government mandated or funded PES, is by its very nature so flawed as to require complete abandonment.
Lastly, so that this may be a more productive exchange - could you please also explain your own political/social philosophy? Are you a libertarian, social democrat, conservative, left-anarcho-libertarian, right-anarcho-libertarian, arch-capitalist, etc? I'm just curious and I think we need to set the terms and understand one another.
Not that it's relevant, but I'm far left though not orthodox. (Did someone say something about critical thinking earlier?) You again made an assumption, this time about my use of the word "abandonment." I didn't say we should stop funding education or dismantle the system. I would truly love to see it torn down completely and reconstituted for the benefit of children and teens, but I'm not delusional. I do encourage parents to abandon the system when they realize it's harming their kids. A parent's first responsibility is to his or her children, period. (My husband and I were able to offer better options to our son, at our expense, not because we're evil Republicans--far from it--but because we didn't own a car then and we lived very simply. He was able to go to schools where they didn't teach him to hate half a dozen disciplines. We're horrible people, I know.) Again, school does NOT have to be industrial and one-size-fits-all. Our school system is the way it is because it benefits adults, and big business, and that's why it doesn't change except to get worse. A publicly funded system could be excellent and humane, but the model found throughout the west is not that. If you don't know enough about alternative education to even be aware of any alternatives, and you don't have even a passing familiarity with what's wrong with our system, then I suggest we suspend the discussion until you've had time to get up to speed. This is not rocket science, or at least it shouldn't be.
Umm, Pearson....? The big publishers that make a killing off brain dead textbooks, test prep, remedial everything, packaged and even more brain dead "curricula," etc...? You know what's telling? How lefties' heads explode when someone dares criticize public schooling. (Not the idea of public funding of education, but the system we have.) I mean, it's not surprising to me because I have no illusions that the left cares about children as a class of people requiring protection and advocacy. Now, I know what you're going to say: "The real villains are the private charter school titans!!!!!!!!" And that I didn't say that will be proof in your mind that I'm a closet Republican, blah, blah, blah. Wrong again. Do I support private charters? No. Do I think they destroyed a glorious system that all of us just ADORED during our own confinement? Get real. I don't need to rant against private charters; there are countless folks like you who would love to do it all day. You have it covered. My time is better spent educating leftwing types about the actual history of public schooling, and the reality of it, and trying to get them to consider education from the perspective of actual children. An uphill battle, to be sure, but an important one.
Megan just tell us. Are you an "anticommunist" anti-Leftist charter school and arch-capitalist supporter? Just say so if you are. It will make this easier moving forward.
"leftwing" - define that for us, please.
And don't let me let you off the hook. I asked you to define "education industry" and you proceeded to say "Pearson" (which is a RIGHT WING organization) and then conflate it with "DA lEfT!!!"
Why don't you just put your money where your actual mouth is. Define some problems in EXHISTING American history courses and let us know how "wrongly" left those lessons lean.
I'll wait. Please be as specific and comprehensive as possible. Tell us how any American state's public ed system is biasing students toward the class conscious or history-realistic "left".... I'll wait.
Oooooh boy! Conflating Pearson with "lefties"!
https://www.techdirt.com/2022/08/05/absolutely-terrible-textbook-publishing-giant-pearson-wants-to-make-everything-even-worse-with-nfts/
Lost me Megan. Sorry. You lose.
You're a loon. You don't understand the first thing about what I'm saying and you don't want to. You have literally never heard a critique of public schools from the left. Do you live in a bag?? Clearly you've never been to Brooklyn or any other place where moms and dads come out to pro-Palestine marches after going to their homeschool co-op. This is maddening, even by the standards I'm used to. I'm going to pull a Chang and tell you to work on your reading comprehension before tearing off another hyperventilating rant. And go take a pill.
You live in Brooklyn?