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

[Belz...]

The reality is that State-mandated attendance at schools (combined with the consequent State-mandated definition of "school" and "education" and the necessary bureaucratic machinery and the inevitable bureaucratic bloat) guarantee high cost and poor performance.

Demonstrate this.

The clearest indication that the principal purpose of compulsory attendance statutes is NOT education but rather to provide employment for dues-paying members of the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel is the measurement of education in units of time. "A year of Algebra I" or "three credit hours of 20th Century US Diplomatic History" makes as much sense as "a pound of friendship" or "a square meter of curiosity".

This belongs in conspiracy theories, not here.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

I forgot to add something really important. The mechanism for accomplishing the above is universal public education.

NOT(school = education). NOT(government-operated schools = public education). In Belgium, Hong Kong, Ireland, and the Netherlands a majority of students take the taxpayers' education subsidy to schools other than those operated by government employees.

A point Malcolm would probably appreciate: A World Bank study (per the Economist) indicated that in Uganda, the most effective tutors for third-grade math students were fourth-grade math students.

http://info.worldbank.org/etools/docs/library/244476/day7Uganda%20Efficiency%20Study.pdf

Thanks. Interesting.

 

[jimbob]

Malcolm, your pseudo Boolean logic obscures what you are saying.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Malcolm, your pseudo Boolean logic obscures what you are saying.

Deal with it.

 

[Minoosh]

In Belgium, Hong Kong, Ireland, and the Netherlands a majority of students take the taxpayers' education subsidy to schools other than those operated by government employees.

The teachers are still being paid by the government, they're just not technically government employees.

Only it turns out best business practice looks similar to best government practice. Charter schools run a little leaner, generally without official collective bargaining status, but employees still benefit from that general culture. My job had various benefits, it just wasn't guaranteed beyond the school year. Mainstream schools do the same thing.

Mainstream district schools provide transportation and football fields. The charters probably wouldn't be making money if they weren't allowed to cut certain corners. Whether K-8 or K-12 can be a moneymaking endeavor (albeit still primarily government-financed) is an open question to me. Large-scale, meritocratic philanthropy would probably help. Having the dollars follows the student vs. the campus/district - that's fair if transportation and/or neighborhood access is considered.

But regarding a common mandate for core educational standards - that train has left the station. Kids will have to be numerate up to algebra-plus and good enough readers to decode the state's written test and meet some core standards I'm just learning about. In other words, a certain amount of "slavery" per your definition will remain.

By all mean allow HS students to satisfy some math requirements through vocational programs (this week I was at a campus funded partly by student enterprises). But it's just reality that especially K-5 school involves a great deal of straight-up child care, which consumes resources, including serving federally funded lunches that meet certain nutritional standards. It's a good thing, IMO, that they go to this place called "school" every day. So we differ there.

 

[Belz...]

Deal with it.

No: YOU demonstrate this, please. You make a claim, don't expect us to take you at face value, especially given your history here.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

I forgot to add something really important. The mechanism for accomplishing the above is universal public education.

NOT(school = education). NOT(government-operated schools = public education). In Belgium, Hong Kong, Ireland, and the Netherlands a majority of students take the taxpayers' education subsidy to schools other than those operated by government employees.

The teachers are still being paid by the government, they're just not technically government employees.¹
Only it turns out best business practice looks similar to best government practice. Charter schools run a little leaner, generally without official collective bargaining status, but employees still benefit from that general culture. My job had various benefits, it just wasn't guaranteed beyond the school year. Mainstream schools do the same thing.²
Mainstream district schools provide transportation and football fields. The charters probably wouldn't be making money if they weren't allowed to cut certain corners. Whether K-8 or K-12 can be a moneymaking endeavor (albeit still primarily government-financed) is an open question to me.³ Large-scale, meritocratic philanthropy would probably help. Having the dollars follows the student vs. the campus/district - that's fair if transportation and/or neighborhood access is considered.

But regarding a common mandate for core educational standards - that train has left the station. Kids will have to be numerate up to algebra-plus and good enough readers to decode the state's written test and meet some core standards I'm just learning about.⁴ In other words, a certain amount of "slavery" per your definition will remain.

By all mean allow HS students to satisfy some math requirements through vocational programs (this week I was at a campus funded partly by student enterprises). But it's just reality that especially K-5 school involves a great deal of straight-up child care, which consumes resources, including serving federally funded lunches that meet certain nutritional standards. It's a good thing, IMO, that they go to this place called "school" every day. So we differ there.⁵

1. The Brookings study Vouchers and the Provision of Public Services discusses this issue at some length. Legally, the difference between an employee and an independent contractor is a matter of who must keep certain records, who is responsible for taxes, and who is legally responsible for compliance with other regulations. Administrative rules in a government bureaucracy are laws that apply to government employees. State agencies operate according to the law (or not, if someone is skirting the regulations), while non-State actors must operate within the smaller set of laws that do not include bureaucratic regulations. The difference in the legal environment within which institutions operate makes a measurable difference in performance. A study that compared the performance of parochial schools and government schools in Belgium (which subsidizes attendance at schools outside those operated by government employees) found that parochial schools generated higher performance, overall AND that parent SES was less strongly correlated with test scores in parochial schools than in government schools (government schools exacerbate inequality).

Contracting-out the provision of public services has numerous advantages over direct provision of those services by employees of government agencies.

2. Every State requirement imposed on non-State providers of educational services reduces the range of options available to parents. Intrusive regulation will determine the degree to which independent schools will resemble government schools.

3. I recommend James Tooley's The Beautiful Tree: A Personal Journey Into How the World's Poorest People Are Educating Themselves.

4. "Have to" or what? For every level of performance above "comatose" there is some human so brain-damaged or miswired that no amount of attention and resources will produce performance at that level.

5. Homeschools?

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

... Political control of school harms most the children of the least politically adept parents.

... "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".

Why do you need me to take the "contrary position" before you back up your own claims?Let's see your "abundant empirical evidence".

Okay.
1. Homeschoolers routinely outperform conventionally-schooled children. There is abundant support for this proposition.
2. Independent and parochial schools outperform the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel's schools in the US. Independent and parochial schools outperform government schools in other countries. There is abundant evidence for this.
3. The correlation (district enrollment, score) is negative, where "score" is NAEP 4th and 8th grade Reading and Math scores. States with numerous small school districts outperform States which compel a large percentage of total student population to attend schools in large school districts. Smaller is better. There is abundant evidence for this.
4. The correlation (age start, score) is positive, where "age start" is the age at which States compel attendance at school and "score" is NAEP 4th and 8th grade Reading and Mat score. States which compel attendance at seven or eight have higher 4th and 8th grade Reading and Math scores than States which compel attendance at five or six. There is abundant evidence for this.

The above indicators indirectly measure the relative power of individual parents' control against the control over educational options that remote authorities exercise.

Additionally:...
5. States which impose few teacher certification requirements on school districts outperform States which require NTE or Praxis test scores. Teacher certification is bogus. Colleges of Education contribute less than nothing to teacher competence.

 

[A'isha]

The above indicators indirectly measure the relative power of individual parents' control against the control over educational options that remote authorities exercise.

No they don't. Not even close.

Do you have an actual cite backing up your specific claim above that "political control of school harms most the children of the least politically adept parents"?

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

No they don't. Not even close.

Do you have an actual cite backing up your specific claim above that "political control of school harms most the children of the least politically adept parents"?

1. Homeschoolers control education directly. Homeschooled kids outperform conventionally-schooled children. That's a measure of the power of parent control.
2. Independent and parochial schools cannot compel attendance. Parents choose to enroll their kids in independent and parochial schools. That's a measure of parent control.
3. Small school districts empower parents in two ways: (a) the voice of the individual parent is less diluted against the voices of other parents and against insider groups, (b) if several small districts share a city, parents do not need to quit their jobs and move out of the county or the State to escape bad policy, they can just move across town. That's a measure of parent control.
4. Every extra year that the State does NOT compel attendance is another year in which the parent chooses the educational environment. That's a measure of parent control.

 

[Minoosh]

Contracting-out the provision of public services has numerous advantages over direct provision of those services by employees of government agencies.

And leaner management makes slavery more acceptable?

Intrusive regulation will determine the degree to which independent schools will resemble government schools.

There are regulations around child care. School lunches have to provide protein. Even if the kids throw it away, we have to serve them that nutritious lunch. In some cultures the school would be raising pigs on the side with the slops. It's true that might run afoul of U.S. regulations. I think schools with agricultural or similar tracks are fine. They still have to meet academic standards.

"Have to" or what? For every level of performance above "comatose" there is some human so brain-damaged or miswired that no amount of attention and resources will produce performance at that level.

"Have to" to get a normal HS diploma. Obviously some people won't, they'll be booted out at 22 with some sort of honorable and laudatory discharge. The norm though is for basic numeracy and literacy to be universal goals. Most people in the U.S. know how to read and write. More people would (will) be proficient at math, IMO, if we chip away at institutionalized math phobia. I know brilliant people who "can't do fractions." In my observations, it was poor arithmetic skills that were holding kids back in algebra, not the actual algebra concepts.

Homeschools?

If there is a literate adult with time to do it, fine. Probably a lot of people could do K-3. I worked with a lovely teacher, a Mormon, who home-schooled her kids to a certain level and covered in a couple of hours what took 7 hours to do in regular school. She didn't have to deal with crowd management, which helped.

For some reason this school attracted formerly home-schooled religious kids. She was showing a video on plate tectonics and I heard a girl say, "My religion doesn't believe in this." The teacher said, "That's fine, this doesn't have anything to do with anyone's religion. These are facts." She was a very bright girl, a good thinker, and was getting basic earth science like elementary kids do. The home-schooled kids were often very sweet, bright people but pretty early on religious bents constrained what they were exposed to. Maybe you could argue that this country/world needs ignorant people but I don't see why.

My mom wasn't a creationist, and studied to be a teacher, but was intimidated by certain math. She tutored an older brother of mine and as a byproduct I skipped a whole grade. But beyond division and multiplication she wouldn't have been strong. Beyond a certain level home schooling's benefits start to wane, IMO. Basically due to those two things: superstition and math phobia. Things start to get a little specialized as early as 4th grade. Teachers start teaching the scientific method. Which runs smack against the culture of many home-schoolers.

Public education is corrupt. Teachers say things like, "I know you can all learn this," or "You're doing great" to both kids and colleagues. Laws say No Child will be Left Behind. Well, some will be. That's not a reason not to have standards. The reasons behind it are first, global competitiveness and second, it's fair to give kids universal grounding in literacy, numeracy and critical thinking.

 

[A'isha]

"The first place" in the British colonies of North America that had compulsory attendance laws was the Congregationalist theocracy of Massachusetts Bay (c. 1644). The other religious colonies (Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, New Harmony, Connecticut) followed. The Southern commercial colonies, such as Virginia, left education to parents. "The first place" anywhere to have State-mandated compulsory attendance was some German principality after the Protestant Reformation where the Lutheran clergy, fearing that Catholic parents would not properly indoctrinate their children into the new religion, prevailed upon the ruler to mandate attendance at (Lutheran) Church-operated schools.

Which has zero connection to compulsory public education in modern industrial nations like the United States.

Prior to the mass migration to the US of Polish, Irish, and Italian Catholics, the policy that subsidized attendance at (mostly Church-operated) schools of the parents' choice (vouchers, basically) was more common than direct State operation of schools. After waves of Catholic immigration provoked an allergic reaction in the resident Protestant majority public-sector entrepreneurs like Horace Mann talks panicked legislators into granting them control over their very own pet bureaucracy. The "public" school system originated in religious intolerance and anti-Catholic bigotry.

That's the most twisted misrepresentation of Horace Mann's education reforms (and his desire for promoting them) that I've ever read.

Mann was not only keen to ensure that his schools were far more secular than the ones established by the Old Deluder Satan Act, he also started and did the majority of his reform work before the first waves of Catholic immigration even began (and long before the massive late-19th Century immigration waves - free public elementary schools were established in pretty much every state decades before the waves of Italian immigrants arrived). And you have your cause and effect wrong in any case - Catholic parochial schools were actually established in response to the public education system that was already in place when most of them arrived in America. In New York City, complaints about this pre-existing public school system from the early Irish immigrants resulted in the passage of the Maclay Act, which attempted to appease their religious demands by establishing an elected school board and ensuring that public schools could only provide (and public funds could only be spent on) an entirely secular education. Catholic dissatisfaction about this compromise reform of the pre-existing public school system (mostly due to their unhappiness with the decision to disallow public school funding for parochial schools) is what motivated them to expand their private parochial school system in New York.

Readers may assess. Pinker explains the principle. He does not dispute it. He agrees.

He doesn't agree nearly as strongly as you imply.

So does Dawkins.

I personally don't give two ***** about Dawkins.

 

[A'isha]

1. Homeschoolers control education directly. Homeschooled kids outperform conventionally-schooled children. That's a measure of the power of parent control.
2. Independent and parochial schools cannot compel attendance. Parents choose to enroll their kids in independent and parochial schools. That's a measure of parent control.
3. Small school districts empower parents in two ways: (a) the voice of the individual parent is less diluted against the voices of other parents and against insider groups, (b) if several small districts share a city, parents do not need to quit their jobs and move out of the county or the State to escape bad policy, they can just move across town. That's a measure of parent control.
4. Every extra year that the State does NOT compel attendance is another year in which the parent chooses the educational environment. That's a measure of parent control.

Repetition of your unsupported assertions is not a cite.

 

[Belz...]

1. Homeschoolers routinely outperform conventionally-schooled children.

Do you plan on ever supporting your claims ?

 

[A'isha]

Do you plan on ever supporting your claims ?

Especially since none of his "points" even address his claim that "political control of school harms most the children of the least politically adept parents".

 

[Mister Earl]

Why do I get the vibe that the reason the public education system is unsatisfactory for this guy is that it doesn't permit religious nonsense like creationism?

 

[RandFan]

Especially since none of his "points" even address his claim that "political control of school harms most the children of the least politically adept parents".

Especially given that the evidence is clear, no education (state run compulsory or otherwise) means a high likelihood of poverty. The more educatin one has, regardless of whether that education is state run compulsory or otherwise the higher quality of life one is likely to have (see chart above).

Malcolm would, it seems, would happily sacrifice people like myself for his ideal. We know that historically that many poor people, given the chance, would put their children to work rather than educating them. We know that many parents are not competent to teach their children. Parents with substance abuse problems are not likely to take the time to educate their children.

Before you get rid of the public option (state run compulsory) I suggest we have a viable replacement.

 

[jimbob]

Why do I get the vibe that the reason the public education system is unsatisfactory for this guy is that it doesn't permit religious nonsense like creationism?

I think Malcolm Kirkpatrick subscribes to Darwinism... Unfortunately also social Darwinism.

 

[uke2se]

I think Malcolm Kirkpatrick subscribes to Darwinism... Unfortunately also social Darwinism.

And extremist libertarianism, IIRC. Climate denial and the whole package.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

... huge numbers of children slipped through the cracks under that system...that's why compulsory education was established in the first place, to stop those children from slipping through the cracks.

That's the self-serving History of Education that the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel's schools teach. It's false. Compulsory attendance at school originated in theocratic indoctrination. Just search " 'That Old Deluder, Satan' Act".

That law has nothing whatsoever to do with modern compulsory public education. Maybe you ought to search, for example, the Elementary Education Act 1870.

"The first place" in the British colonies of North America that had compulsory attendance laws was the Congregationalist theocracy of Massachusetts Bay (c. 1644). The other religious colonies (Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, New Harmony, Connecticut) followed. The Southern commercial colonies, such as Virginia, left education to parents. "The first place" anywhere to have State-mandated compulsory attendance was some German principality after the Protestant Reformation where the Lutheran clergy, fearing that Catholic parents would not properly indoctrinate their children into the new religion, prevailed upon the ruler to mandate attendance at (Lutheran) Church-operated schools.

Which has zero connection to compulsory public education in modern industrial nations like the United States.

Which, in the first place, originated in religious indoctrination and anti-Catholic bigotry.

Prior to the mass migration to the US of Polish, Irish, and Italian Catholics, the policy that subsidized attendance at (mostly Church-operated) schools of the parents' choice (vouchers, basically) was more common than direct State operation of schools. After waves of Catholic immigration provoked an allergic reaction in the resident Protestant majority public-sector entrepreneurs like Horace Mann talks panicked legislators into granting them control over their very own pet bureaucracy. The "public" school system originated in religious intolerance and anti-Catholic bigotry.

That's the most twisted misrepresentation of Horace Mann's education reforms (and his desire for promoting them) that I've ever read.

Mann was not only keen to ensure that his schools were far more secular than the ones established by the Old Deluder Satan Act, he also started and did the majority of his reform work before the first waves of Catholic immigration even began...

Yah, Mann's a saint around the Colleges of Education, second only to the Archangel Dewey. Here's Wikipedia:

Based on available records, immigration totaled 8,385 in 1820, with immigration totals gradually increasing to 23,322 by the year 1830; for the 1820s decade immigration more than doubled to 143,000. Between 1831 and 1840, immigration more than quadrupled to a total of 599,000. These included about 207,000 Irish, starting to emigrate in large numbers following Britain's easing of travel restrictions, and about 152,000 Germans, 76,000 British, and 46,000 French, constituting the next largest immigrant groups of the decade.

Mann's schools were not secular, they were (ostensibly) non-denominational. Students read the bible in English and interpreted the word for themselves. This was Protestant doctrine: Catholics took their bible in Latin and salvation required the intercession of a priest. Mann rode a wave of anti-Catholic bigotry into a position of control over his very own pet bureaucracy.

I personally don't give two ***** about Dawkins.

If vehemence were logic, Ant would be a mathematician.