Top home-school texts dismiss Darwin

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Well that's inconceivable!

I don't think I'm quite familiar with that phrase...

Politics and education don't mix. Keep them far, far apart. Banning books is political activism, and if your school board is doing that to a gay book you probably live in a state like Kentucky and should move immediately. Then again, Kentucky will never ban home schooling. I think states like New York that have a respectable education system and semi-respectable political environment should require at a minimum some kind of serious certification for teaching a class of one, if not banning it outright.

Screw allowing conservatives their freedom of belief. One of the troubles with most social liberals in the US is that they don't fight anywhere near dirty enough, which allows the social right to walk all over them.

Solidarity Forever!

ruveyn

I agree. This is why homeschooling needs to exist, because as a government program public schools will always be subject to politics. Private schooling is also a viable alternative, but it tends to be expensive and doesn't always fit non-standard needs as well as homeschooling does.



It's far from being that simple, and as you've noted, this is a perfect example of the kind of politics that public schools tend to be affected by. You're also projecting your own prejudice here, I don't live in Kentucky, I live in Seattle and still wouldn't choose to put any child of mine in the public schools for any number of reasons, and I'm a socially liberal atheist. Additionally, why should someone be forced to move because the local schools aren't measuring up in some way if homeschooling is a perfectly viable solution?



You obviously don't follow politics, especially the part where a good chunk of New York's local politicians have had to resign in disgrace recently... Again, you're projecting your own prejudices onto the debate, to you "liberal=respectable conservative=not respectable" and that's simply not a valid point of view. You're also contradicting your own description of yourself as someone who doesn't place authority on a pedestal, as such a person would never argue that a parent is not entitled to teach their own offspring unless the state gives says it's okay.



And the truth comes out, the social liberal wants to use the power of the state to crush dissenting views; why am I not surprised?. Does it not occur to you that if social liberals banned homeschooling in an effort to deny conservatives the freedom to teach their own children, that the conservatives will simply hijack the school system and apply the power you've so graciously given them to suppress your cherished liberal values? You simply can't give anyone that kind of power, because it will inevitably be abused. It's far better to allow people to teach their children as they see fit than to force them to use a flawed state system in an effort to indoctrinate specific ideological views, power shifts around enough that the cost of textbook replacement alone would be astronomical as different regimes came in and out of office. Look at the possible negative outcomes; for homeschooling you have a relative handful of people that may have been taught some biology that is at odds with the scientific community, vs having the entire country's children subjected to the whims of the political system and who is in power at any given time. Which could go more wrong?

There, I do believe that should qualify as "enough rope", carry on.

Just FYI, New York state homeschooling rules are EXTREMELY strict, and there is a good amount of oversight over the homeschooling families. I know someone homeschooling there (non-religious; they homeschool because her daughter was having a horrible school experience) and they complain about the hoops all the time.

I have no idea how good the NY school system is, overall, just that despite going to a school with a fantastic reputation, the one child was not getting what she needed. That sort of misfit happens frequently; education cannot be one size fits all.

I may not agree with Dox's reasoning on this one, but I agree with his conclusions. And I happilly have my kids in the local public schools. I have seen too much at this point to NOT support a broad variety of education choices.

Now you live in a dream world. If the public sector pays for it, then politics is fundamentally involved. You cannot, ever, spend public money without political oversight, and that invites political interference.

As for the instant case, I live in Canada, a country generally known for its liberal approach to the State sector (and in which school boards, nonetheless, engage in this type of book-banning behaviour, constrained only, in part, by the Courts.)

In England and Australia, on the basis of the police state developing and the disrespect of human rights alone it should be considered third-world.

Normally I'd agree with you, but the creepy thing about the UK/Australian authoritarianism is that the people there seem to actually want that style of government.

They have for centuries lived under despotic rule and seem to like it, you're correct. It just shows you what sort of backwards rednecks live there.

There is no need to make broad generalizations that basically slander millions of people you've never even met. Please be more careful in how you phrase your arguments, DirkWillems.

This statement is completely inaccurate and needlessly inflamatory. That is not the definition of third world.

"Third World" refers to chronically poor and economically underdeveloped nations. For example Haiti or Uganda. Albania, if not a third world country is very close to being one. When they were being misruled by Hoxa they were certainly third world.

ruveyn

Well, to make some broad generalizations that slander billions of people I have never met, education has little effect on the hairless ground ape.

The early America that had a one room school for local children was more of a clubhouse. Four years was considered plenty of learning. There were not a lot of books in the world, Ben Franklin had a shelf five foot long, Jefferson wrote a shelf five foot long, with a quill, and he was a bit obsessive.

For most reading and writing up to being able to send letters was the internet of the day. Anyone a hundred miles away was about ten days round trip by horse,

Most of school has always been socialization.

Broad public education starts about a hundred years ago, first babysitting the children too young to work in the mill, and after Child Labor Laws, training future workers for the mill. There were no classics, no Greek or Latin, just show up on time, do as you are told, or else, and work and eat by the bell.

It was conditioning for being a labor force for someone else's benefit. Rural children were spared till the invention of the school bus.

At fourteen when you could leave school and get a job, most were glad to go. Jobs were farm labor or factory hand, and not much education was needed.

Even the one room school house was for settled places, and the wave that took the land mostly home schooled.

Graduation from high school shot up in the thirties, for there were no jobs and schools had food.

Post war, the GI Bill, was our first wave of higher education. Labor saving machines had been developed during the war, and a secondary economy grew. Education was still about conformity.

Science came along about the time Russia launched Sputnik. No one knew what it was, but they taught it. Almost all of our higher education was directed at Defense Industries. Having a correct political attitude was considered very important. You and your children were better off dead than red.

We must never give in never do business with the commies, and the ChiCom were the worst. 67,000 dies in Viet Nam to keep them out of Cochin China.

A funny thing happened on the way to the future, some people liked learning, but they were not the kind that could get a government job. They developed computers in the shadows.

Then there were fewer and fewer jobs, so sending everyone to the University delayed starting work, and built large State Work Forces. Many went, but it seems they did not get educated. All levels of school were dumbed down, and a university degree was about like High School of a generation before.

There were still less jobs, so a Masters became needed. Education was pushed as the answer, but now we have less jobs, and declining income. Students were also charged more and more to be kept out of the labor force, and some owe a house in Student Loans. It is a debt servitude that you can't go bankrupt on.

As education is about use and being exposed to new ideas, the internet is the big classroom, it is taking the place of traditional education, and still charging, for something that should be free.

What we are seeing is an Education Bubble about to pop. Universities were built up for the War Babies, a huge group, and have been trying to fill space any way they can. States are broke, and education is the first thing they cut. Without jobs there is no motive to spend six years and lots of money to become unemployed.

Under 30, has a 50% unemployment rate, and many have moved back home. The future does not look much better. The younger War Babies are 50, they will be in the way for a while.

The two places that can afford an educated class are India and China, with a billion people you can take only the best. They will outnumber the American best by eight to one, and will work for a lot less.

We will not be the world's Manufacturer, or Managment. We are no longer the big investors, that is now oil money and China.

So perhaps home schooling for running the family farm and writing letters is the best idea.

Are you insane?

It would be more cost-efficient in a caste-based society where one occupation per lineage is the standard.