Split Thread Does compulsory schooling equate to slavery? (Split from: "Liberal Fallacies" thread)

[Border Reiver]

That better describes the current State-monopoly system. Assignment by district, magnet schools, G/T classes and policies that restrict parents' options for the use of the taxpayers' age 6-18 education subsidy to schools operated by dues-paying members of the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel harm poor people far more than they harm children of wealthy parents, who can afford private school tuition or a mortgage in a district with decent schools. Children of poor parents get Detroit Public Schools.

In the entirety of this thread you've yet to address the fact that there are no laws that prevent parents of any age from home schooling, or sending their children to alternate schools, other than the limitation of whatever happens to be available locally, and the relative wealth of the parents.

The public education system currently in place in the US and Canada is not a monopoly.

That's what Cyrus McCormick did. Ben Franklin learned to read at home and attended school for two years, between age 12 and 14 iirc.

Yes, several people were able to be homeshcooled and accomplish great things. The vast majority of persons without the benefit of a publically subsidized education system lived and died in poverty unable to do more than to "make your mark" if asked to sign their name or acknowledge a debt.

When you ignore the many references I have made to the benefits that poor people get from competition in education services, it's had for me to take you seriously. Political control of school harms most the children of the least politically adept parents.

It's hard for us to take you seriously when you misrepresent so many aspects of the public education system.

 

[A'isha]

It's hard for us to take you seriously when you misrepresent so many aspects of the public education system.

Especially when his statement that "political control of school harms most the children of the least politically adept parents" is not true.

 

[Almo]

"Does compulsory schooling equate to slavery? (Split from: "Liberal Fallacies" thread)"

No. It is a necessity born of our species' reliance on learned knowledge rather than instinct.

 

[RandFan]

That better describes the current State-monopoly system. Assignment by district, magnet schools, G/T classes and policies that restrict parents' options for the use of the taxpayers' age 6-18 education subsidy to schools operated by dues-paying members of the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel harm poor people far more than they harm children of wealthy parents, who can afford private school tuition or a mortgage in a district with decent schools. Children of poor parents get Detroit Public Schools.That's what Cyrus McCormick did. Ben Franklin learned to read at home and attended school for two years, between age 12 and 14 iirc. When you ignore the many references I have made to the benefits that poor people get from competition in education services, it's had for me to take you seriously. Political control of school harms most the children of the least politically adept parents.

Hand waving. Unresponsive. Just because Alan Iverson is a succesful NBA star does not mean that the NBA is an answer to poverty. Your Franklin anecdote is utterly meaningless. It's anecdotal evidence. I've not ignored anything you've written as it pertains to this question. Telling poor families that the NBA is a viable option for their children to avoid poverty is truly asinine. As asinine as saying that if Ben Franklin can be an autodidact then so can the rest of us. Again, that's painfully ad hoc. It reeks of desperation to rescue a theory.

Telling me an anecdote about a brilliant man does not answer the question as to how I would have been educated absent state run schools. Further, it ignores reality. Poor people are not genetically inferior to rich people yet they are far more likely to fail in life. Fact: State run schools have been a way for many people to escape poverty.

 

[RandFan]

Absent state run schools, poor people will just teach themselves is not evidenced in fact.

"In order for an autodidact to be successful in their self-teaching, they must possess great self-discipline and reflective capability. Some research suggests that being able to regulate one’s own learning is something which must be modeled to students, for it is not a natural human tendency for the population at large."

Iran-Nejad, Asghar; Brad Chissom (1992). "Contributions of Active and Dynamic Self-Regulation to Learning". Innovative Higher Education 17 (2): 125.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autodidacticism#cite_note-9

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Hand waving¹. Unresponsive². Just because Alan Iverson is a succesful NBA star does not mean that the NBA is an answer to poverty. Your Franklin anecdote is utterly meaningless³. It's anecdotal evidence⁴. I've not ignored anything you've written as it pertains to this question⁵. Telling poor families that the NBA is a viable option for their children to avoid poverty is truly asinine⁶. As asinine as saying that if Ben Franklin can be an autodidact then so can the rest of us⁷. Again, that's painfully ad hoc. It reeks of desperation to rescue a theory.

Telling me an anecdote about a brilliant man does not answer the question as to how I would have been educated absent state run schools⁸. Further, it ignores reality. Poor people are not genetically inferior to rich people⁹ yet they are far more likely to fail in life¹⁰. Fact: State run schools have been a way for many people to escape poverty.¹¹

Readers may assess. 1. It's directly responsive.
2. It's directly responsive.
3. It seems to have meant enough that Randfan attempts a rebuttal.
4.The world is a pile of anecdotes. Summaries of subsets of the world of anecdotes we call "statistics".
Marvin Minsky
Interview
Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery, 1994-July

... the evidence is that many of our foremost achievers developed under conditions that are not much like those of present-day mass education. Robert Lawler just showed me a paper by Harold Macurdy on the child pattern of genius. Macurdy reviews the early education of many eminent people from the last couple of centuries and concludes (1) that most of them had an enormous amount of attention paid to them by one or both parents and (2) that generally they were relatively isolated from other children. This is very different from what most people today consider an ideal school. It seems to me that much of what we call education is really socialization. Consider what we do to our kids. Is it really a good idea to send your 6-year-old into a room full of 6-year-olds, and then, the next year, to put your 7-year-old in with 7-year-olds, and so on? A simple recursive argument suggests this exposes them to a real danger of all growing up with the minds of 6-year-olds. And, so far as I can see, that's exactly what happens. Our present culture may be largely shaped by this strange idea of isolating children's thought from adult thought. Perhaps the way our culture educates its children better explains why most of us come out as dumb as they do, than it explains how some of us come out as smart as they do.

5. Then you have lied about MY ignoring the issue, since we have discussed it in this thread and previous education-related threads. Some people will fall through the cracks in any system. The policy choices are NOT between a flawed system and Paradise on Earth, but between different legal environments and different types of organizations of flawed, greedy, altruistic, stupid, wise, clumsy, adept people.
6. Pretending that that's my argument is truly asinine,
7. Please refer back to the Minsky quote. Many more people could educate themselves if the State did not mandate 12 years of tedium.
8. How were you fed absent collective farms and State-run cafeteria?
9. All human behavioral traits are heritable, including intellect and ambition.
10. We agree, here. Economic turbulence will drive some smart, driven people into the lowest quintile of income. Competitive markets in education services will more likely lift their children out of poverty than will State-monopoly schools.
11. State-run schools have trapped many people into multi-generational poverty.

 

[RandFan]

7. Many more people could educate themselves if the State did not mandate 12 years of tedium.

"Could"? How many people would? How many parents would allow their children the time to educate them? How many people become gainfully employed after 12 years of "tedium"? How many people become gainfully employed who drop out? Again, your arguments have no basis in reality.

The world is a pile of anecdotes. Summaries of subsets of the world of anecdotes we call "statistics".

Then give me the statistics and NOT the anecdote. George Burns attributed his long life to smoking cigars. That anecdote is demonstrative of nothing other than it's possible to live a long life and smoke cigars. That's a poor reason to justify smoking cigars.

Stories vs. Statistics: The Impact of Anecdotal Data on Professional Decision Making.

I want the statistics not an anecdote. Especially an anecdote that is so silly. If I said that poor kids "could" become NBA players because Alan Iverson is an NBA player that would be true but irrelevant to whether or not professional basket ball is a viable solution to poverty.

 

[RandFan]

Absent state run schools, poor people will just teach themselves is not evidenced in fact.

"In order for an autodidact to be successful in their self-teaching, they must possess great self-discipline and reflective capability. Some research suggests that being able to regulate one’s own learning is something which must be modeled to students, for it is not a natural human tendency for the population at large."

Iran-Nejad, Asghar; Brad Chissom (1992). "Contributions of Active and Dynamic Self-Regulation to Learning". Innovative Higher Education 17 (2): 125.

Bears repeating. The argument that people will teach themselves if there are no schools is absurd in the face of the facts.

 

[A'isha]

7. Please refer back to the Minsky quote.

Why is Marvin Minksy any kind of authority on this? Especially since he repeats the same boneheaded error in thinking that the education of a selected sample of "eminent people" from centuries ago has any application to mass education in today's technological world.

Many more people could educate themselves if the State did not mandate 12 years of tedium.

Citation needed.

8. How were you fed absent collective farms and State-run cafeteria?

You're comparing apples to amoebas. There already are a ton of things that governments provide to citizens on a collective basis, because attempting to provide those things individually tends to result in a massive array of problems.

9. All human behavioral traits are heritable, including intellect and ambition.

I'd ask for a citation here, but I already know you're drawing this from Murray's racist claptrap.

Competitive markets in education services will more likely lift their children out of poverty than will State-monopoly schools.

Parents who cannot afford to pay for their children to be educated will have, big shocker, uneducated children.

The competitive market in the automobile industry is going to provide no benefit whatsoever to people who can't afford cars, if you take away the city bus systems they rely on. And a competitive market in education services will provide no benefit whatsoever to people who can't afford schools, if you take away the publicly-funded school systems they rely on.

11. State-run schools have trapped many people into multi-generational poverty.

Citation needed.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Absent state run schools, poor people will just teach themselves is not evidenced in fact.^a
"In order for an autodidact to be successful in their self-teaching, they must possess great self-discipline and reflective capability. Some research suggests that being able to regulate one’s own learning is something which must be modeled to students, for it is not a natural human tendency for the population at large."...^b

A. False. See E.G. West, Education and the State
E.G. West, "Education with and Without the State".
See also:...
James Bartholomew
"The Failure of the British Welfare State"

The welfare state in the UK has failed—in one area after another.
State education began in 1870 with the Forster Act, which allowed the creation of government schools. Its purpose was not to wipe out the existing private and charitable schools. The whole idea was to catch those few people who were missing out. It was reckoned in 1861 that 95 percent of children were getting between five and seven years of education. State education was started to save that missing 5 percent or less.
Now, 134 years later, with the state dominating education, a government survey reveals that 20 percent of the adult population is functionally illiterate. State education, instead of saving the bottom 5 percent, has quadrupled the number of those left out.

Why suppose that the largest extortion racket in your neighborhood (the State) has any exceptional expertise in the education business?
I have asked numerous times on Education-related threads and healthcare-related threads the following questions:
1. From State (government, generally) operation (or subsidization) of which industries does society as a whole benefit? You may suppose either a dichotomous classification, A={x:x is an unlikely candidate for State operation (or subsidy)} and B={x:x is a likely candidate for State operation (or subsidy} or a continuum...
(Highly unlikely)-1___________._________+1(highly likely)
2. What considerations determine an industry's classification of position on the continuum?

B. What's the point of this quote? Who here advocates a system in which everyone is self-educated? The realistic policy choices include State-run (or subsidized) schools and the institutions which would evolve in an unsubsidized, minimally-regulated market in education services.

 

[RandFan]

What's the point of this quote? Who here advocates a system in which everyone is self-educated?

I asked you again and again how I would have been educated absent state run schools. You ignored me and then finally gave me some silly anecdote about Franklin.

Your links do not demonstrate that poor people will educate themselves to become gainfully employed. You've not demonstrated that children in the US who never get an education are better off than those who do. On the contrary you have stipulated in the past that an education is statistically vital to success.

So, you still have not answered my very simple question. How would I have been educated?

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Why is Marvin Minksy any kind of authority on this?...¹
Citation needed.²
You're comparing apples to amoebas. There already are a ton of things that governments provide to citizens on a collective basis, because attempting to provide those things individually tends to result in a massive array of problems.³
I'd ask for a citation here, but I already know you're drawing this from Murray's racist claptrap.⁴
Parents who cannot afford to pay for their children to be educated will have, big shocker, uneducated children.⁵
The competitive market in the automobile industry is going to provide no benefit whatsoever to people who can't afford cars, if you take away the city bus systems they rely on. And a competitive market in education services will provide no benefit whatsoever to people who can't afford schools, if you take away the publicly-funded school systems they rely on.⁶
Citation needed.⁷

1. Minsky cited the scholar, McCurdy, who conducted the historical study. The recursive argument comes from an authority on AI (machine learning. Brains are machines).
2. Since, according to ANT, I either make arguments without the "needed" citations or argue from authority, ANT has all bases covered, except consideration of the argument.
3. "Because"? No.
Eduardo Zambrano
"Formal Models of Authority: Introduction and Political Economy Applications"
Rationality and Society, May 1999

"Aside from the important issue of how it is that a ruler may economize on communication, contracting and coercion costs, this leads to an interpretation of the state that cannot be contractarian in nature: citizens would not empower a ruler to solve collective action problems in any of the models discussed, for the ruler would always be redundant and costly. The results support a view of the state that is eminently predatory, (the ? MK.) case in which whether the collective actions problems are solved by the state or not depends on upon whether this is consistent with the objectives and opportunities of those with the (natural) monopoly of violence in society. This conclusion is also reached in a model of a predatory state by Moselle and Polak (1997). How the theory of economic policy changes in light of this interpretation is an important question left for further work.

4.1 Steven Pinker, actually.
4.2. Murray's no racist, by any normal definition.
4,3. Even if it came from the Grand Kleagle Robert Byrd himself, if he says "2+2=4" it's still true.
4.4 The brain is an evolved organ. Emotional responses, memory capacity, and other nervous system functions vary between individuals and (possibly) between regional varieties of human.
5. School can be expensive. Education is potentially cheap.
6. Across industries and across countries, competition lowers prices and reduces costs.

 

[A'isha]

E.G. West, "Education with and Without the State".

This source does not support your statement that RandFan is wrong. It, in fact, makes the utterly unwarranted assertion that minimal education to achieve nominal literacy (as was occurring in 19th Century Britain) is equivalent to being "educated" when it comes to determining the effectiveness of schooling.

This is shown by the objections to the Forster Act that were leveled at the time (which West does not deign to mention): that it would result in lower-class children being given an education beyond that minimal one which they were already receiving.

See also:...
James Bartholomew
"The Failure of the British Welfare State"

You mean this? Why should we care what some newspaper columnist argued pretty much exclusively via unsupported assertion?

I mean:

The welfare state has made British people substantially poorer than we would otherwise have been.

It has made the British far less-well educated that we would have been.

It has caused mass unemployment to become permanent.

It has caused the old to be poor, without savings.

It has caused mass lone parenting and what I call “broken parenting.”

That's not an argument. It's ideological polemics. It's soundbite Thatcherism in its most inane form (which is undoubtedly why the article notes that the author writes for the Daily Heil and the Torygraph).

Why suppose that the largest extortion racket in your neighborhood (the State) has any exceptional expertise in the education business?

"The State" is not a stand-alone entity. I expect educators, who make up the faculty and staff of the public schools here, to have expertise in the education business.

Which they do.

*snip dumb pseudomath*

B. What's the point of this quote? Who here advocates a system in which everyone is self-educated? The realistic policy choices include State-run (or subsidized) schools and the institutions which would evolve in an unsubsidized, minimally-regulated market in education services.

No, the realistic policy choices involve universal curriculum and testing standards as applied to all schools, whether public, private, parochial, or at home.

Because, as the TIMSS data shows, that's what works best.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Especially when his statement that "political control of school harms most the children of the least politically adept parents" is not true.

There is abundant empirical evidence for the proposition that political control of school harms most the children of the least politically adept parents. I will provide some if ANT will take the trouble to support the contrary position. As Ant says: "citation needed".

 

[Mister Earl]

The realistic policy choices include State-run (or subsidized) schools and the institutions which would evolve in an unsubsidized, minimally-regulated market in education services.

So religious fundamentalist schools that teach creationism as fact would be OK? No standards at all, or minimal ones? What if I opened a school, taught everyone in base eleven, refuted the alphabet as satanist drivel, reverted everything in written form to iconographic form, revived the practice of diagnosing humors, and graded children on a bell curve of blood type and astrology sign?

There's a reason there's standards. The purpose of a public education system is to ensure future generations have the means to compete effectively in the global work force. Deregulating educational standards would mean that goal would fail far, far more often. That you cannot see that is in itself an excellent argument for a good public education system.

There is abundant empirical evidence for the proposition that political control of school harms most the children of the least politically adept parents. I will provide some if ANT will take the trouble to support the contrary position. As Ant says: "citation needed".

Skepticism 101: The burden of proof is on the claimant. You have consistently failed to support your assertions. Demanding someone else to live to that standards when you are unwilling or unable to yourself does nothing but damage your credibility.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

... *snip dumb pseudomath*

Math is just a stripped-down language. ANT stridently ignores the central issue: why suppose that the largest violence dealer in your locality (the State) has any expertise beyond threats, violence, and extortion?

 

[A'isha]

1. Minsky cited the scholar, McCurdy, who conducted the historical study.

So why don't you cite McCurdy, then? What does Minsky bring to the table, other than being a semi-famous name?

The recursive argument comes from an authority on AI (machine learning. Brains are machines).

Brains are not machines. That's why Minsky's apparent insight has not been all that useful in the area of Artificial Intelligence, and why his expertise in the field of AI is not useful in the area of education.

Eduardo Zambrano
"Formal Models of Authority: Introduction and Political Economy Applications"
Rationality and Society, May 1999

Please explain, specifically, how Zambrano's oft-reposted-by-you quote is responsive to what I actually said?

4.1 Steven Pinker, actually.

Citation to what he said about heritability, then?

4.2. Murray's no racist, by any normal definition.
4,3. Even if it came from the Grand Kleagle Robert Byrd himself, if he says "2+2=4" it's still true.

Murray's a racist tool, and what he says is wrong.

5. School can be expensive. Education is potentially cheap.

How so?

6. Across industries and across countries, competition lowers prices and reduces costs.

Then why can't everyone afford a car? Why do people still have to take the bus?

 

[A'isha]

There is abundant empirical evidence for the proposition that political control of school harms most the children of the least politically adept parents. I will provide some if ANT will take the trouble to support the contrary position. As Ant says: "citation needed".

Why do you need me to take the "contrary position" before you back up your own claims?

Let's see your "abundant empirical evidence".

 

[Mister Earl]

Let's see your "abundant empirical evidence".

Wish in one hand...

 

[A'isha]

Math is just a stripped-down language.

No, it's not.

ANT stridently ignores the central issue: why suppose that the largest violence dealer in your locality (the State) has any expertise beyond threats, violence, and extortion?

I didn't "ignore" it, you snipped out the part of my post where I answered your question.

So, since I answered your question, now you can answer mine: why suppose that the free market has any expertise beyond minimizing expenses, maximizing profit margin, and outselling competitors?