What are public schools *really* doing?

[Patriot]

Theres a lot of people posting that public schools kill creativity, etc.

How many people on this forum are Entreprenuers?  how many of you own a business?  There's Theresa i know, myself, who else?

I went to public schools and I'm pretty sure Theresa did too, I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

I own & operate two businesses.  Yes, I did the 'public school' thing.  No, it didn't kill alll my creativity.  Yes, it did attempt to indoctrinate me in some agenda driven philosophies that were antithetical to the founding principles of this country.  No, all folks who get a flu shot avoid getting the flu!  And not all who attend public schools are successfully indoctrinated in those agenda driven philosophies.  But that's not the point.

The questions remains.... what are our public schools *really* doing.  The evidence suggests that they are more and more  engaging in behavior modifications and criteria that dumb down our kids and make them more amenable to future 'change'.  Change that in some cases does NOT follow the basics of our founding.  The evidence further suggests that these 'projects & programs' are well supported by outside influences who have agendas that are contrary to our founding principles.  The evidence further suggests that these modifications and influences are having their desired effects.  To wit:  The slow destruction of individual liberty and the replacement of that liberty with a dependency on 'the government' or its' agencies.  Ultimately resulting in a politically correct collective that is NOT the embodiment of real individualism and individual creativity.


Why is it that people who don't like the way our founders established our system don't just relocate their butts to any of a number of other countries more well suited to their anti-republic, anti-capitalist, pro-socialist, 'big government is good' views?  That may be indicator of the one flaw in the American founding:  We provide a means to be dismantled ourselves from within.  They used to call it freedom, liberty and the rule of law.

[Diane Amberg]

  Isn't that the same old sack cloth and ashes that has been going on for a very ,very long time? This country has always had a percentage of depressed, back cloud," the world ends tomorrow" people. We've always had up and down cycles.  I'm still waiting so you can say "See I told you so," and have it mean something. During the fuel shortage in the 70's the dismal people hollered,That's it, we're doomed, the US will never be the same. Awful! The rest of us went about the business of making it work anyway and after a time things went back to normal.
    Frankly, I always thought some of communism's ideas were adapted from the successes we've had here, not the other way around. Are you sure they aren't borrowing our ideas?
 In the meantime, I'm headed to the fire hall to decorate with a bunch of hunky young fire fighters, most whom have done their military time now and aren't the least bit touchy about it. They know we love,'em, they know we consider them our finest patriots as soldiers AND firefighters, and they don't have to be reminded over and over or they get insecure about it.
As far as the cubical world I was never a part of it. But I can share one thing.You don't run off to the competition around here. When employees sign contracts they have to sign that they won't work for the competition for several years so you don't take company secrets with you.
  Just out of curiosity, what do you have against sec.8 or public housing? You'd rather see more homeless?   
Why don't I leave? You've got to be kidding.The system we have now has been very good to me. I had a job I was proud of, and have  two businesses on the side that have been very successful. Even now I've got more offers of work than I can handle. I don't especially want to have to wear long dresses and shawls and give up some hard fought rights for myself and little girls everywhere. Why is "evidence"against education being collected, what do "they" plan to do with it? Create new, harder relevent curriculum? Suits me and teachers like me fine. Get it past all the parents...I wonder.  Some parents would welcome it just as they are involved now ,others would fight against it. They just don't want to be part of the team and don't want change even it it makes things better.

[Patriot]

...
    Frankly, I always thought some of communism's ideas were adapted from the successes we've had here, not the other way around. Are you sure they aren't borrowing our ideas?

  Just out of curiosity, what do you have against sec.8 or public housing? You'd rather see more homeless?   
Why don't I leave? You've got to be kidding.The system we have now has been very good to me. I had a job I was proud of, and have  two businesses on the side that have been very successful. Even now I've got more offers of work than I can handle. I don't especially want to have to wear long dresses and shawls and give up some hard fought rights for myself and little girls everywhere. Why is "evidence"against education being collected, what do "they" plan to do with it? Create new, harder relevent curriculum? Suits me and teachers like me fine. Get it past all the parents...I wonder.  Some parents would welcome it just as they are involved now ,others would fight against it. They just don't want to be part of the team and don't want change even it it makes things better.

Diane,

I think you are beginning to sound like the very evidence spoken of.  You defend the group think about our public schools as if you had something to lose.  It sounds as if some of the 'progressive' drivel made its way into your thinking along the way.  What is it about inch by inch that you fail to grasp?

I guess you can't envision a society where 'government isn't the best answer'.  And remember, public school teachers ARE goverment paid agents. 

I didn't say I had any thing against Section 8 and/or public housing.  Well... there are all those 'well meaning liberal programs' that are called The Projects in many of our major cities.  I deal with landlords and tenant information every day, over 10,000 cases in the last year alone.   Believe me, the government subsidized programs make slaves of both groups.  Landlords and tenants.  Talk about killing individualism and individual creativity!

"They just don't want to be part of the team..."  Now there's a play right out of the Demoncrat playbook!  Isolate em!  If they disagree, they must be racist (or bigots, or homophobes, or right wing extremists), right?  If they aren't with the 'team' they then are what, exactly?  Wrong?  Quick!  Kim Jung Il... send them to the re-education camps!  They aren't with the team!  Hurry, they must not be allowed to infect the other comrades! 

Well, sometimes the cancer gets so big that it's hard to distinguish it from the healthy tissue that it has surrounded.

Hmmm.... So being against your team is wrong?  Who said your 'team' was right in the first place?  Just curious. 

[Diane Amberg]

Good grief. You mean when it comes to the education of children, the parents and teachers are NOT a team? I should leave the parents out of it? Like I said, ya get 28 parents together ya get at least 10 different ideas how the teacher should teach. I don't have to defend myself and I won't. Nor do I need to defend any "group." If you are anti public education fine, but I don't want to hear anybody complaining how expensive the alternatives are. The world chose to go to computers and things that make education very expensive. Yes, there are tons of money thrown at education and I sure don't know why the pendulum swings the way it does. I just don't see a big communist or socialist conspiracy going on. We teach every child to salute the flag and repeat the pledge...to the republic, not to the constitution, by the way. Isn't that indoctrination too? What's wrong with that? Some things we do make schools and communities run more smoothly. If I chose not to sent the lunch count to the cafeteria because I'm choosing to be independent that day and I don't feel like being part of the herd, am I wrong? Or am I making someone else's life harder unnecessarily. When is forming a habit not indoctrination? When is learning something education not indoctrination? If the music teacher has all the kids stand up and learn to sing America all together at one time...education or indoctrination?  Is basic training education or indoctrination? I guess it depends on the person doing it. Yes, inch by inch does mean something to me. That goes on in many forms all the time .Then the pendulum swings too far and it begins to swing back the other way.  There was a "look and guess" period in reading. Some kids thrived with it, most didn't. I learned and taught phonics.I got caught up the the "New Math" It does work fine for some kids, but it is extremely slow. Even the best students  plodded through the process. I've got to go.

[srkruzich]

As far as the cubical world I was never a part of it. But I can share one thing.You don't run off to the competition around here. When employees sign contracts they have to sign that they won't work for the competition for several years so you don't take company secrets with you.

A contract like that won't hold up in a court of law. It has been tried before.  The courts ruled that no employer can prevent a employee from making a living through contractual form.  Now a 1 year no compete agreement can be held up in court but several years, i have never seen one hold up ever.

Just out of curiosity, what do you have against sec.8 or public housing? You'd rather see more homeless?

Simply that it is not available to those who really need it. Usually consumed by drug dealers and their ilk as well as welfare brood mares that drop kids every couple years so they can stay on the welfare.
   

[Sarah]

I honestly don't know who I agree with and who I don't.  I know I don't like the public school system and I started to dislike it when Christianity was tossed out the door and yet the celebrations of other religions and lifestyles were welcomed with open arms.  I started to dislike it when basic education was tossed aside for teaching kids how to deal with their home life and friends and peers and all this other stuff that should be left at home and is none of the schools business.  I started to dislike schools when they became silly in their "zero tolerance" and expelling kids for some of the most stupid stuff.  It's like common sense just flew right out the window.   I started to dislike the public schools when they thought, and are still toying with the idea, that more time away from parents and more time in the system would make better kids, examples of:  longer schools days, longer school years even to the point of year round school, and lowering the compulsory school age.  Children belong to parents.  Children were give by God to parents to raise, not to the government to raise.  I've even heard of a parent out here telling me that her son came home from school and told her that the school said he didn't need to listen to parents and that they didn't know anything and she's not the first one I've heard this from, but the first one out here.   

My opinion is is that they should offer school vouchers and give parents the ability to choose private over public.  I think even public schools should be privatized and taken out of the hands of government and do away with the NEA. 

[Anmar]

I honestly don't know who I agree with and who I don't.  I know I don't like the public school system and I started to dislike it when Christianity was tossed out the door and yet the celebrations of other religions and lifestyles were welcomed with open arms.  I started to dislike it when basic education was tossed aside for teaching kids how to deal with their home life and friends and peers and all this other stuff that should be left at home and is none of the schools business.  I started to dislike schools when they became silly in their "zero tolerance" and expelling kids for some of the most stupid stuff.  It's like common sense just flew right out the window.   I started to dislike the public schools when they thought, and are still toying with the idea, that more time away from parents and more time in the system would make better kids, examples of:  longer schools days, longer school years even to the point of year round school, and lowering the compulsory school age.  Children belong to parents.  Children were give by God to parents to raise, not to the government to raise.  I've even heard of a parent out here telling me that her son came home from school and told her that the school said he didn't need to listen to parents and that they didn't know anything and she's not the first one I've heard this from, but the first one out here.   

My opinion is is that they should offer school vouchers and give parents the ability to choose private over public.  I think even public schools should be privatized and taken out of the hands of government and do away with the NEA. 

Do you mean that you think private organizations should set up shop, that the government should tax everyone to subsidize poorer folks to purchase these services that they may not be able to afford, and all at the same time the government should offer a public option?

Are we talking about health care or education?

[Sarah]

Do you mean that you think private organizations should set up shop, that the government should tax everyone to subsidize poorer folks to purchase these services that they may not be able to afford, and all at the same time the government should offer a public option?

Are we talking about health care or education?

So we should set up inferior government funded schools so that the poor people can go to school?  We should allow the government to decide what our kids are taught because we want school to be free? 

[redcliffsw]

The bad situation with the gov't schools began much earlier than most of us
ever realized it.  It was after the Civil War during re-construction that set this
"public" school thing in motion. 

[srkruzich]

The bad situation with the gov't schools began much earlier than most of us
ever realized it.  It was after the Civil War during re-construction that set this
"public" school thing in motion. 

Yeah your right.  They tried to re-educate the southerners by rewriting history in the hopes that the truth would be evicerated.