and so it begins. A fellow teacher sent us this. Assault on Education has begun

[Hortensis]

37. No silver here. The end goal is END TO COMPULSORY EDUCATION.

Last edited Thu Feb 23, 2017, 06:38 AM - Edit history (1)

Eliminating public school funding is just a beginning. Nobody would be forcing anyone to educate their children.

And after that would come an enormous social sifting out and establishment of a very large permanently impoverished class of people who would need years of remedial schooling as adults in order to compete for basic jobs in a college-level world.

The Federalist: Compulsory education is simply impossible to reconcile with a free people, which is presumably why it is enforced so strictly in places like Greece and Serbia. In the United States—a nation, one recalls, where liberty is held to be not merely vital but inalienable—it is altogether puzzling and dismaying that it ever reared its ugly head, or that it ever became an acceptable state of affairs.

Some advocacy group: "Why should we end compulsory education? Because the principles of freedom under the U.S. Constitution demand it."

The Kochs' platform when David Koch ran for president included:
“We oppose all personal and corporate income taxation, including capital gains taxes.”
“We support the eventual repeal of all taxation.”
“We condemn compulsory education laws … and we call for the immediate repeal of such laws.”

Charles Koch: "The only legitimate roles of government are protection of person and property."

As for home schooling as an answer for any but the most committed: Why would parents who have to be forced to be "involved" be good, or even almost adequate, at whatever degree of involvement they manage? Sure some people would do a good job with their own children. But generally speaking, teaching is no more a job for amateurs than being an accountant is. The decline in achievement nationally would be enormous.

And let's not leave off the table that a very substantial percentage of us are below average in intellectual abilities. A person who never "got" long division long ago is not going to be able to teach it, much less whatever strange and incomprehensible method may have replaced it.

Plus there's the little issue of personality and lack of intellectual interest. Millions of kids don't graduate high school unable to say how many senators each state sends to congress because they weren't taught that. They were, a number of times. A main reason they didn't pay attention and didn't bother to remember is that the parents raising them "taught" them that this stuff isn't important. These are going to be the teachers?