Get Rid of Public Schools?
Responses
A Question about Public Education by HeadMistress from The Common Room
Should we get rid of Public Schools? by Lennie
Request
David Gelernter had a commentary in the L.A. Times entitled “Let’s Get Rid of Public Schools”. (Hat Tip: Extreme Wisdom.) David’s commentary starts off like this:
| Discussions of school choice and vouchers nearly always assume that public schools are permanent parts of the American educational scene. Increasingly I wonder why. Why should there be any public schools? |
I read this and knew this would be a good topic to discuss. Public Schools evoke emotions from all sides. In light of David’s opinion, I now ask the following question. Yes, there is only 1 question this week so you can take a wide range in your explanation.
- Should we get rid of public schools? and why?
Rules reminder: No profanity, no name calling. I anxiously await your responses. They have been very good on the previous topics. Enter your response in the comments or email me using the link below with the name of your blog, the title of your post and its url. I will be accepting responses through Sunday night.
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I am a homeschooler, but I do not blame every problem our publicly education children endure on the public schools. I have often made
excuses for public schools. I acknowledge that teaching in a public school is a tough job, and it’s much more difficult than what I do.
While I lean sharply toward the libertarian end of the political spectrum, I will even grant, for the sake of the larger point I wish to make, the assumption that if parents do not do their job properly with their children, then society in the form of children’s services or
educational programs in schools must step in. Actually, I think that’s problematic, but again, let’s just concede this thought and carry it on to its logical conclusion.
If we need public schools because parents do not do their jobs and the schools must step in to make up the deficit, then the schools must accept responsibility for what happens in their watch. They must prove that they can actually fix the problems caused by parents not bringing up their kids to function in society. Can they? Have they proven that they are capable of doing this? If they base their right to intervene upon the failure of
the parent, then they ought to be able to overcome the parent’s
failures, right? If they cannot ‘fix’ the problems caused by parental
failures, then they have also failed. In that case, how do we justify their intervention? Maybe we need a different solution.
Parents do fail. People who earn their bread and butter from the
public school system are well aware of this, in some cases, more aware
than the rest of us, because they have to deal with the results of
those failures on a daily basis. So they are well aware that parents
do fail, and that some pretty tragic and abominable results of those
failures are in the classrooms and halls every day. We know that the
folks who work in and with and for the public school system are aware
of this because they tell us so- anytime anybody talks about getting
the government out of public schools, privatizing education, or any
sort of significant change and reform, we hear some variation of “But what about the parents who can’t or won’t or don’t take responsibility for their own children? It’s so selfish to ignore those children. *WE* really care about them, and we are here for those kids whose parents are not doing their jobs for whatever reason…”
Well and good. Then make up for the parents who are not doing their jobs. But you can’t use those hard cases as a justification for
institutional existence and then turn around and wash the institution’s metaphorical hands of any responsibility for those same cases when those hard cases continue to go wrong, when children in that institution harm other children in that same institution, when children graduate unable to read or do math or understand science.
If Public schools cannot, in fact, teach children to read in spite of poor or nonexistant parenting, then what is the justification for their existance? If they can, then why do we continue to hear educators excuse their lapses because of bad parenting?
Children do graduate from public schools unable to read. Children are molested by other students on school grounds during school hours. Children do graduate from school with a diploma which ought to mean more than it does. Since public schools obviously cannot overcome poor parenting or protect the other kids from students who have been badly parented, they need to stop defending poor performances ‘because we have to educate everybody and private schools do not,’ and they need to stop blaming parents. If they are claiming that whenever parents fail to do “whatever is necessary to bring their kids up properly to function in society,” the school has the right to step in, well then, the school had better have the moral authority as well- i.e. had better actually be capable of doing something about it.
Instead, we have is an unchallenged state of affairs whereby public educators justify public schools because of the parents who don’t/can’t/won’t do their jobs (teaching children properly) and then when the school also does not produce well taught children, blame the parents again.
If/when public schools fail, they ought to be prepared to accept the same sort of blame and censure they dish out toward parents who fail.
A key difference is that parents who fail generally don’t get paid
more to keep right on failing the kids in their charge. When parents
fail, they don’t get to say, “Look, just give us more taxpayer dollars
and we’ll do better…”
So if public schools can make up for the deficiencies of poor parenting and lack of parental involvement, I’m willing to grit my teeth and accept their continued existance. If they cannot successfully educate their students in spite of bad parenting, then we need to think of another plan. Sending the public schools more money is not the plan- we’ve already tried that.
Comment by DeputyHeadmistress — 5/16/2005 @ 9:16 pm
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Trackback by The Education Wonks — 5/18/2005 @ 4:20 am
I am for privatizing all education. What I mean is I am for school vouchers. I think it would be a good thing for all schools to compete for the money that would go with your children. That even means giving the money to home school education.
I just got through spending $800.00 plus dollars for our children’s education for next year. (This is a drop in the bucket compared to what they are allotted in Public School)
Home schooling can be very expensive! I know that some of you may be saying, well that’s the choice you made! To us, it wasn’t a choice it was our only option. I think that it is fair to have that money that is allotted for our children, follow them where ever there education is being taught.
I have a lot of concerns about Public Education but I don’t want to take the time to go through all of those points. I will just say in brief… you might be surprised what is taught those 6 hours that they are away from us.
Comment by Lisa — 5/23/2005 @ 8:53 pm