Rise & Fall Of The Public Education System
There are dozens of reasons given for the fall of the Roman Empire — decay, decadence, despotism, centralization, incompetence . . . Add rhetoric, presumptuousness . . . One article describes 210 reasons!
Mainly, upon close reading, one finds that it becomes self-evident that disintegration would happen. No external reform imperatives would have ensured such warranted collapse.
The same dynamic is happening to the industry called “public education” — an experiment of nationalizing education services in many nations of the world — an operation under central command of the government and delivered by government workers. It is so wrong of people to label reform efforts as “privatizing” when it’s simply a return to a default before government intervened.
John Holt, an education reformer in the 60s who reversed gears to help found the home education movement, sensed a lurking fascism within the public education system. He said: “Today freedom has different enemies. It must be fought for in different ways. It will take very different qualities of mind and heart to save it.”
Above is my lead-in to comment on the large number of catch-up news that the blog, Society for Quality Education, has provided. As a welcome clearinghouse of information for citizens come to grips with “the system” of education we endure it is important to pay tribute to the gift of technology and services like SQE in this crucial cause.
My half-century of struggle in navigating the ropes — both for my own children and now my grandkids — has not been clear sailing. It is disturbing to still experience, and see current parents still struggling with, unresponsive systems and officious scolding educrats. Some educrats still dream of being “education czars” to coerce people into their mold. Some educrats passionately support a “progressive ideology” which is more self-serving than beneficial to the students.
I am so thankful that people who seek and yearn for alternatives to the coercive government system can at least talk about and envision options such as charter schools, education savings accounts, vouchers and low cost private schools. At least people are informed about the option of home education with its loads of resources and supports available. We need also to talk about tax deductible scholarships for private education.
Now adding to the list of readings for more perspective on the “public education system”, here is a straightforward article by Bruce Deitrick Price shining more light on the Reading and Math Wars and the ideology behind them: Education : None Dare Call Them Commies http://www.educationviews.org/education-call-commies/
(See more from BDP on American Thinker.)
to SQE 19 July 2014, http://www.societyforqualityeducation.org/index.php/blog/read/accentuate-the-positive