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

[Border Reiver]

1. Across industries, across countries, competitive markets in goods and services lowers costs and improves quality.

There already is a competitive market for education - and the public sector appears to be winning in the cost arena.

2. Beyond a very low level there are no economies of scale at the delivery end of the education business as it currently operates. Education only marginally qualifies as a public good as economists use the term and the "public goods" argument implies subsidy and regulation, at most, not State (government, generally) operation of an industry.

The delivery end of the education system is a teacher, up in front of a class, or student, instructing them on the subject. The teacher gets a set salary regardless of the number of students in the class, regardless of whether the school is public or private. If you hire a tutor to give individual instruction, you end up bearing the full cost of the teacher's salary. The ability to hire instructors becomes quite a bit easier wif the costs of the salary are spread around. Even more so if the teachers are to receive a salary comparable to what they might earn at another job, so that they might have an incentive to remain a teacher.

3. School can be expensive. Education is potentially cheap. It does not take 12 years at $12,000 per pupil-year to teach a normal child to read and compute. Most vocational training occurs more effectively on the job than in a classroom.

Except where a necessary level of academic knowledge is required to be able to undertake vocational training. Doctors, and other medical specialists, engineers, the legal professions, etc are good examples of the sort of jobs that require a fairly extensive academic background in order to be effective at their avocations.

4. Compulsion degrades motivation, and motivation is a critical component of educational achievement.

That compulsion still exists, regardless of whether the child is being educated at a public school, parochial school, home school, etc. In all cases the parents of the child are generally the ones applying the pressure and compulsion to the children.

5. Large pools of resources attract parasites and predators, who wrest control from normal citizens. Across the US, per pupil costs rise and performance falls as districts increase in size.

Show me the stats - I've shown you the ones from Canada that correlate higher costs to a lower population density.

 

[Border Reiver]

Homeschoolers do this all the time. British A-level exams, the SAT and the GRE establish some level of education independent of school. The Foreign Service exam, actuarial exams, bar exams, and the LA welder's test establish certifiable skills.

Even if you do write the test - see if you get hired without appropriate academic acreditation.

 

[RandFan]

Homeschoolers do this all the time. British A-level exams, the SAT and the GRE establish some level of education independent of school. The Foreign Service exam, actuarial exams, bar exams, and the LA welder's test establish certifiable skills.

A.) Only if they meet state standards. B.) Only if the parents are competent and involved. C.) It's STILL school. It's right there in the freaking name homeSCHOOLING.

You've yet to give us an example of typical children getting jobs without schooling. None, zero, nada.

So, take me up on my challenge.

 

[Agatha]

Warning: anecdote ahead.

I can tell you that my two sons who were homeschooled ended up having to get GCSE qualifications (the exams done at 15/16 here) at 6th form college post 16. One did GCSEs alongside his A levels because he wanted to go to university on a competitive, oversubscribed course, and needed to show evidence that he could cope with the work. The other because though he doesn't want to go to university at this stage, he doesn't want the kind of dead end job that would be the only thing open to him if he has no formal qualifications.

'Welding certificates' are fine if one wants to be a welder, but not so much for those who don't want to close off their options, who might want to enter academia, or be a doctor or enter other professions. Universities need a way of determining which of the thousands of applicants they get for the most well respected courses will cope with the work. A-Level and International Baccalaureate are the established way to do that here.

It is not easy to arrange to take GCSEs or A-levels outside of school. It is possible, but it is expensive and difficult to organise, one needs to find a sympathetic school or exam centre who are prepared to allow someone who is not one of their pupils to sit an exam. Hence, most homeschooled children have few formal qualifications unless they go to 6th form college.

My daughter did both A-levels and the IB (at the same time), and then the STEP maths paper as part of her university application as Univ. of Warwick only take students with top grades plus passing the STEP paper. There is no possible way I could have taught her (or afforded a private tutor for her) to get to that level without her being at a school, whether state or private. As it happened, she attended an independent school on a scholarship and bursary from age 4 to 18.

It seems from the preceding posts that one of Malcolm's objections (third person because this post is not addressed to him in particular) to state schools is that the pupils are all taught the same subjects with the same curriculum regardless of ability. If this is the way state education is arranged in America, then it's this that needs to change. Not all countries have the same arrangements; here in the UK for example most schools, both the old grammar schools and the comprehensive schools, are streamed by ability by the age of 11/12/13 so that the more able pupils follow a more academic-focused curriculum, while the less able follow a more vocation-focused curriculum.

Doing that effectively, so that pupils get an education more tailored to their skills and abilities, is much more likely to provide a good outcome for the majority of pupils than the one-size-fits-all characterisation of state education that Malcolm has put forward.

 

[A'isha]

It seems from the preceding posts that one of Malcolm's objections (third person because this post is not addressed to him in particular) to state schools is that the pupils are all taught the same subjects with the same curriculum regardless of ability. If this is the way state education is arranged in America, then it's this that needs to change.

Despite Malcolm's claims, that's not the way it's arranged here.

Not all countries have the same arrangements; here in the UK for example most schools, both the old grammar schools and the comprehensive schools, are streamed by ability by the age of 11/12/13 so that the more able pupils follow a more academic-focused curriculum, while the less able follow a more vocation-focused curriculum.

It's similar to that here. Even among the core curriculum classes, there are different "levels" even within each grade. For instance, at one of the high schools I went to, the 11th grade (second-to-last year before graduation) Physics classes came in at least three flavors: AP (or Advanced Placement) Physics, which was a university-prep type course for students on an academic track regular old Physics, and what was called Conceptual Physics, which (as the name implies) focused on the concepts only, with almost none of the math found in the regular Physics classes (to say nothing of the math-heavy AP Physics classes).

There were electives as well - in addition to the core classes, we could pick from different additional courses we wanted to take, some vocational (like auto mechanics through the AYES program), some practical (like computer programming), and some strictly academic (like Psychology or Macroeconomics). There were even "Academies", specialized tailored curricula intended to prepare students for future careers in finance or mass communications.

 

[Agatha]

Thank you, ANTPogo. I had been misled by the posts comparing the education of students in state schools with forcing all same-age children to wear the same sized shoes. From your post it's clear that while streaming by ability is not done the same way as it is here, it's not the case that pupils in American state schools follow the same curriculum irrespective of their ability or particular interests.

Is it the case that pupils can be held back a year (or more), or put forward a year (or more) if it seems the best thing for them, in American state education? Because my impression from some preceding posts of Malcolm's is that this is not possible.

 

[Border Reiver]

Thank you, ANTPogo. I had been misled by the posts comparing the education of students in state schools with forcing all same-age children to wear the same sized shoes. From your post it's clear that while streaming by ability is not done the same way as it is here, it's not the case that pupils in American state schools follow the same curriculum irrespective of their ability or particular interests.

Is it the case that pupils can be held back a year (or more), or put forward a year (or more) if it seems the best thing for them, in American state education? Because my impression from some preceding posts of Malcolm's is that this is not possible.

In Canada it certainly is possible to be held back (a co-worker of mine did that for her daughter who having problems with math), and be pushed ahead (I was pushed ahead in grammar school). A cousin of mine who teaches down in the States confirms that it is possible in Michigan State at least.

I know that the Ontario schools stream into core and academic levels, plus have options for vocational training after grade 8.

This is what has confused me about this position that schooling is an oppressive straight jacket that we force our children into regardless of talent or inclination, my own experiences for myself, my children and the experiences of my friends and family tell me that it isn't so. Now while there are tweets that can be made to improve the system, it is not so broken that it needs to be done away with because it does work.

 

[RandFan]

'Welding certificates' are fine if one wants to be a welder, but not so much for those who don't want to close off their options, who might want to enter academia, or be a doctor or enter other professions. Universities need a way of determining which of the thousands of applicants they get for the most well respected courses will cope with the work. A-Level and International Baccalaureate are the established way to do that here.

How many people would want to be treated by a doctor who never went to school (I believe that homeschooling for lower level education is fine if the parents have the competency and the children meet the state standards)?

I want my Doctor to have degrees from an accredited university. None of this Kent Hovind Diploma mill doctor stuff for me.

There are of course exceptions, Vivien Thomas was a brilliant medical researcher, engineer surgeon and professor at John Hopkins. He never got past High School. But he DID go to School. And of course he was brilliant. Not many people become surgeons without a medical degree from an accredited university. At least not in the United States.

We ought not formulate policy based on statistical outliers. We ought to formulate policy based on what works. Yesterday I went to see my surgeon who is going to perform a second surgery on my leg. There is some danger of losing mobility in the leg. The first surgery required a lot of tissue to be removed that the surgeon had hoped would regrow by now (it's been two years). He was honest with me that the lack of that tissue put me at some risk but the mass has gotten too large and we should not wait any longer as it could require even more tissue to be taken.

Now, I kinda like walking without the aid of a walker or cane so I'm also kinda glad this guy has diplomas on his wall. It's no guarantee, there are no 100% guarantees from any surgeon, but I'll take a board certified surgeon who has advanced degrees over a doctor who has only had intern/apprentice education anytime.

 

[A'isha]

Is it the case that pupils can be held back a year (or more), or put forward a year (or more) if it seems the best thing for them, in American state education? Because my impression from some preceding posts of Malcolm's is that this is not possible.

Absolutely.

And not just for the full year-by-year curriculum, but for individual courses as well. In elementary school, my reading and English level was far in advance of my classmates, so during those subjects I would actually be sent to a different classroom with students of a higher grade to learn at their level for those subjects (going to the 4th grade classroom when I was still in the first grade), while spending the rest of my classroom time learning all the other subjects alongside the other first grade students the same age as myself.

Same in Junior High and High School - I took the math courses for students one grade higher than I was actually in (sitting in the same math class that 10th graders were sitting in during math while I was only in the 9th grade, and so on), and in my last year of High School I actually got to leave the campus during the last class of the day to attend English classes at the local community college (for full college credit that transferred when I graduated and started attending university).

And I attended nothing but public schools for the entire duration of my pre-university education.

 

[bruto]

Thank you, ANTPogo. I had been misled by the posts comparing the education of students in state schools with forcing all same-age children to wear the same sized shoes. From your post it's clear that while streaming by ability is not done the same way as it is here, it's not the case that pupils in American state schools follow the same curriculum irrespective of their ability or particular interests.

Is it the case that pupils can be held back a year (or more), or put forward a year (or more) if it seems the best thing for them, in American state education? Because my impression from some preceding posts of Malcolm's is that this is not possible.

It certainly is possible, or it least it has been for my generation and that of my children (now in their 20's and 30's). Holding back is more common, but it can go both ways. My stepson was put forward and skipped kindergarten because he was reading early. My daughter was held back a year for social reasons (probably ultimately not a very good idea, but it certainly happened). My sister, back in the 1950's, was skipped by two grades, having gone straight from a French kindergarten to a Massachusetts third grade. All in state schools. When I was attending public schools this was done periodically, including a few cases where students with mental handicaps were "mainstreamed" long before the practice was made systematic or official. We had a 16 year old in sixth grade.

Edit to add: My stepson also was sent to another class for reading, and then back to his home class. So was I. When my sister was in elementary school her teacher gave her extra advanced math work to keep her challenged.

 

[RandFan]

Thank you, ANTPogo. I had been misled by the posts comparing the education of students in state schools with forcing all same-age children to wear the same sized shoes. From your post it's clear that while streaming by ability is not done the same way as it is here, it's not the case that pupils in American state schools follow the same curriculum irrespective of their ability or particular interests.

Is it the case that pupils can be held back a year (or more), or put forward a year (or more) if it seems the best thing for them, in American state education? Because my impression from some preceding posts of Malcolm's is that this is not possible.

Thanks for addressing this. I think it is a disservice to propagate the notion that school exists to make people money and/or that they do more harm than good.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

There already is a competitive market for education - and the public sector appears to be winning in the cost arena.

No. Across the US, parochial schools outperform the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel's schools at a lower per-pupil cost. Lockheed and Jiminez compared independent and parochial schools in six developing countries and found higher performance and lower per-unit costs in all six. The analogous performance and cost difference, by sector (government/private) holds across industries. So much that I suspect something fishy about the Canadian statistics.

The delivery end of the education system is a teacher, up in front of a class, or student, instructing them on the subject.

E.G. West
"Education Without the State"

What is needed is choice in education. School choice has not and will not lead to more productive education because the obsolete technology called ʺschool” is inherently inelastic. As long as ʺschoolʺ refers to the traditional structure of buildings and grounds with services delivered in boxes called classrooms to which customers must be transported by car or bus, ʺschool choiceʺ will be unable to meaningfully alter the quality or efficiency of education.

The teacher gets a set salary regardless of the number of students in the class, regardless of whether the school is public or private.

Really? Does that refer to the Canadian system? All teachers, regardless of the school, receive a salary determined by one nation-wide salary schedule? To the extent that uniform pay scales prevail, they illustrate a problem with bureaucratic operation of schools. It makes no more sense to put all teachers on the same salary schedule just because we call them all "teachers" than to pay bicycle mechanics, diesel mechanics, A/C mechanics, and jet engine mechanics the same wage just because we call them all "mechanics".

If you hire a tutor to give individual instruction, you end up bearing the full cost of the teacher's salary. The ability to hire instructors becomes quite a bit easier wif the costs of the salary are spread around.

The ability to do without instructors becomes much harder when governments compel attendance at school.

Even more so if the teachers are to receive a salary comparable to what they might earn at another job, so that they might have an incentive to remain a teacher.

The myth of the under-paid teacher. Education majors have the lowest scores on standardized tests for college admission. Education majors at the UH had (according to the Dean of the Honors program) the highest GPA in their major and the lowest GPA outside their major, of all undergraduate majors. Education majors have among the lowest scores on standardized tests for graduate school admission (GRE, GMAT, LSAT). On a $/hr. basis they are paid as well as much more demanding majors (accounting, engineering).

Except where a necessary level of academic knowledge is required to be able to undertake vocational training. Doctors, and other medical specialists, engineers, the legal professions, etc are good examples of the sort of jobs that require a fairly extensive academic background in order to be effective at their avocations.

People may need education. They may not need school. On the job training is education. Independent study is education.

That compulsion still exists, regardless of whether the child is being educated at a public school, parochial school, home school, etc. In all cases the parents of the child are generally the ones applying the pressure and compulsion to the children.

It's a mater of degree. The State adds compulsion. That's what a law is.

 

[RandFan]

People may need education. They may not need school.

We can easily falsify that, take the challenge I issued above. Apply for non-menial jobs and tell them that you have no schooling but can, in your own words, "read, write and compute".

As has been explained time and time again, in the real world employers want to see formal education and adherence to standards. That's not in question. We are talking "private" sector as well as public sector.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

We can easily falsify that, take the challenge I issued above. Apply for non-menial jobs and tell them that you have no schooling but can, in your own words, "read, write and compute".

As has been explained time and time again, in the real world employers want to see formal education and adherence to standards. That's not in question. We are talking "private" sector as well as public sector.

Proof of education: the actuary exams, the California bar exam, the Foreign Service exam. Proof of competence: musical performance, athletic performance, successful work history, the LA City welding test. Proof of school attendance: a meaningless transcript from any of the cartel's wretched schools. If I were to hire a masonry contractor, I'd look at his firm's work record, not the transcripts of his employees.
Transcripts are signals. At one time a high school transcript meant more than that the holder warmed a seat for 12 years. Nowadays, that's all it attests.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

School can be expensive. Education is potentially cheap. It does not take 12 years at $12,000 per pupil-year to teach a normal child to read and compute. Most vocational training occurs more effectively on the job than in a classroom.

Ive seen no substantive evidence of your claim. To get a job making $50,000 or more per year you will at the very least need a high school diploma.

... call a head hunter and tell them you have never been to school but you can read, write and compute and you would like a job. See how long you can keep them on the phone. Schools are so detrimental to children according to you that this fake character must have an advantage that employers would jump through hoops to get such a person, right?

Or, here's an idea, apply for any accredited university. Tell them you have never been to school but you can read, write and "compute". Let's see how many schools will accept you.

Good luck and lets see how you do. Let's see how your fantasy education fares in the real world.

Homeschoolers do this all the time. British A-level exams, the SAT and the GRE establish some level of education independent of school. The Foreign Service exam, actuarial exams, bar exams, and the LA welder's test establish certifiable skills.

It's STILL school. It's right there in the freaking name homeSCHOOLING.

You've yet to give us an example of typical children getting jobs without schooling. None, zero, nada.

So, take me up on my challenge.

Our discussion concerns the effects of policy, not the meaning of words. As Quine observed, "Morning Star" and "Evening Star" name the same object (Venus), but observation by some patient Babylonian and not deductive reasoning established the identity. I'd have to see a really muddy track before I'd bet on a hippopotamus to win at the Aqueduct racetrack. The story goes that Lincoln asked: "How many legs does a dog have if you call its tail a leg?" and answered his question: "Four. Calling a tail a leg does not make it a leg."
Again, this discussion concerns policy (compulsory attendance laws, tax support of school, policies which reserve to schools operated by dues-paying members of the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel an exclusive position in receipt of the taxpayers' age 6-18 education subsidy, minimum wage laws, and child labor laws) and not lexicography or etymology. I supplied evidence for the claim: "School can be expensive. Education is potentially cheap. It does not take 12 years at $12,000 per pupil-year to teach a normal child to read and compute. Most vocational training occurs more effectively on the job than in a classroom." If Randfan will grant that policies that give to individual parents the power to determine for their own children how those children will spend the time between birth and legal adulthood deserve as much official support as the cartel's schools, then we have nothing important left to dispute.

"Evidence" is not a matter of definition, but of observation. "E"- ("from")-"video" ("to see").

 

[bruto]

Proof of education: the actuary exams, the California bar exam, the Foreign Service exam. Proof of competence: musical performance, athletic performance, successful work history, the LA City welding test. Proof of school attendance: a meaningless transcript from any of the cartel's wretched schools. If I were to hire a masonry contractor, I'd look at his firm's work record, not the transcripts of his employees. Transcripts are signals. At one time a high school transcript meant more than that the holder warmed a seat for 12 years. Nowadays, that's all it attests.

That's fine for the person hiring a masonry contractor, but what is the masonry contractor looking at when he hires, especially in a job market where applicants far outnumber hires. Experience is a fine criterion but you're not born with it. Someone has to hire you first based on something else.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Proof of education: the actuary exams, the California bar exam, the Foreign Service exam. Proof of competence: musical performance, athletic performance, successful work history, the LA City welding test. Proof of school attendance: a meaningless transcript from any of the cartel's wretched schools. If I were to hire a masonry contractor, I'd look at his firm's work record, not the transcripts of his employees.
Transcripts are signals. At one time a high school transcript meant more than that the holder warmed a seat for 12 years. Nowadays, that's all it attests.

That's fine for the person hiring a masonry contractor, but what is the masonry contractor looking at when he hires, especially in a job market where applicants far outnumber hires. Experience is a fine criterion but you're not born with it. Someone has to hire you first based on something else.

Repeal child labor laws and minimum wage laws and children could get this experience. Currently, we teach them to be useless for 12 years and expect that they acquire salable skills and work habits overnight when they graduate or turn 18 (whichever comes last).

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Thank you, ANTPogo. I had been misled by the posts comparing the education of students in state schools with forcing all same-age children to wear the same sized shoes. From your post it's clear that while streaming by ability is not done the same way as it is here, it's not the case that pupils in American state schools follow the same curriculum irrespective of their ability or particular interests.

Is it the case that pupils can be held back a year (or more), or put forward a year (or more) if it seems the best thing for them, in American state education? Because my impression from some preceding posts of Malcolm's is that this is not possible.

Bureaucracies prefer standardization. Since enrollment determines school district budgets, there's no incentive in efficient use of students' time. Here.

Part of the Smarter Balanced “theory of action” is to provide teachers with “curriculum, instructional materials, rich professional development and other supports and resources to effectively instruct teachers on the standards.”

Supporters of Common Core say they are simply a set of expectations that says what kids should be able to do in school and at what grade levels. Opponents say that’s missing the forest for the trees.

Under Common Core, for example, students don’t learn standard algorithm – think traditional addition or subtraction – until fourth grade now.
...
Alder said the SBAC pilot test asked her child for the methodology he would use to find the answer, not for the answer to the problem itself.

“The only way you can know that is if you were taught a curriculum based on Common Core,” she said. “So the standardized federally mandated test dictates the curriculum that dictates the textbooks that are Common Core compliant.”

If a child knows how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide fractions (easily by age 8 for a normal child with involved parents) s/he's ready for the material we call "Algebra I". US schools march children in circles until the slowest have caught up. That's one reason for loss of motivation by bright kids. Ability grouping creates legal jeopardy from racially "disparate impact".

The cartel's apologists cannot be honest, so they misdirect. Just consider the confusion over normal English words like "grade", "measure", "test" and "standard".
A measure is an order relation on a set. Height or weight of students, for example.
A test is a procedure or device for establishing a measure. A teeter-totter is a test of weight. Standing back-to-back is a measure of weight.
A "standard" is a unit of measure. A kilogram weight is a standard. A yardstick is a standard.
A "grade" is a uniform group. Grade A beef or 14-year-old children are grades.

The problem for the rule-bound, bureaucratic, State-dominated education industry is that students are not standard.

The clearest indication that schools in the US function primarily as an employment program for dues-paying members of the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel is the measurement of education in units of time. "A year of Algebra" or "three credits of Twentieth Century US Diplomatic History" makes as much sense as "a pound of friendship" or "a square meter of curiosity". If the tax-subsidized, compulsory K-12 US school system is not an employment program for dues-paying members of the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel, as source of padded construction and supply contracts and a venue for State-worshipful indoctrination, why cannot any student take, at any age and at any time of year, an exit exam (the GED will do) and apply the taxpayers' age 6-18 education subsidy toward post-secondary tuition at any VA-approved post-secondary institution or toward a wage subsidy at any qualified* private-sector employer?

If it is fraud for a mechanic to charge for the repair of a functional motor and if it is fraud for a physician to charge for the treatment of a healthy patient, then it is fraud for a teacher, school, or school district to charge for the instruction of of a student who does not need our help.

*Say, has filed W-2 forms on at least three adult employees for each of the previous four years.

 

[bruto]

Repeal child labor laws and minimum wage laws and children could get this experience. Currently, we teach them to be useless for 12 years and expect that they acquire salable skills and work habits overnight when they graduate or turn 18 (whichever comes last).

Ah yes, child labor and no minimum wage, because it worked so well before.

I know, while they're merrily working along, in between songs of cheer their "teacher" can read them a story. How about a little Melville?

 

[OMGturt1es]

I read part of page 1. Then I read part of page 11. Then part of page 21. Then page 31. And then part of this page-- the last-- page 41.

This is easily one of the worst threads I have ever read. Ever. In my entire life. Could easily be the worst. Unless my sampled readings were completely anomalous, this is just 41 pages of Malcolm posting terrible, horrible arguments that then get completely trashed by assorted posters. 41 pages of Malcolm's **** posts getting tron apart. 41 pages of **** posts getting **** on. 41 pages of ******** on ****. 41 pages of ****. 41. ****.