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by carlob 2574 days ago
> You are proposing to offset economic inequality by degrading the education of the privileged. Your goal should be improve the education of the disadvantaged instead. Raise all boats, don't drain the lake. It's obvious that the United States could spend much more on education and do a much better job with the schools they have. Pinning any significant portion of the "huge cost" of the current system on middle class homeschoolers seems like sophistry intended to avoid the abuses of the hyper-capitalist, atomized system and ignores the actual problem.

I think you're exaggerating the negative effects of sending almost everybody to public schools. Look at Scandinavia, France, Germany (or even southern European countries), the vast majority of people goes to public schools and it's not like the advancement of humanity has stopped there. A similar argument can be made for socialized medicine, a highly privatized system like the American one ends up being: more expensive, more iniquitous and less effective. If you really think that dismantling or undermining the public school system is not going to end like the medical system in the US, well I don't know how to convince you.
1 comments
surge 2574 days ago
I think you're looking at different school systems and using it to leverage criticisms of home schooling in the US.

Fix public schooling in the US first, make it so it isn't so easy for home schoolers to out perform. Don't make kids guinea pigs while you figure out how to fix it. Then and only then can you level a critical eye on US home schoolers if the vast majority weren't doing a better job than public schools. If you're going to advocate for public school in the US, advocate in what ways that schools today by majority statistics are better than home schooling (socialization actually isn't one of them). Because all I see is a system that is 100 years out of date, anti-science (in terms of teaching methodology and pedagogy versus neuroscience and child development studies) and throwing money at problems that goes to the administrators not to teacher pay or reducing class sizes or anything substantial.

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carlob 2574 days ago
> Fix public schooling in the US first

This is like people saying to fix the bus system before adding bus lanes that would increase congestion for cars. The system is broken because smarter kids or kids who come from more educated families are escaping it. The effect is that public schools in the US are becoming like public transportation in the US: only those who don't have any other option are using it.

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merpnderp 2574 days ago
A kid does not have the right to another kid’s education by forcing him to attend the same school and act as his crutch. If you believe they do, you should march down the the nearest hospital and offer up a kidney, a lung, and a lobe of your liver, because that’s what your theory of justice leads to.
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ericd 2574 days ago
>The system is broken because smarter kids or kids who come from more educated families are escaping it.

Yeah, no. Do you have any experience with the public school systems in the US, or are you just viewing this from Europe and engaging in some vigorous armchair analysis? The problems are manifold, and they're exacerbated by the fact that the school system is not nationally funded, but locally by local property taxes, so impoverished areas with stressed parents also get poorly funded schools.

I know some people who took part in Teach for America, and part of that experience was that they taught in some of the lowest performing schools. And one of their big takeaways was that the teachers in those classes couldn't maintain basic order, let alone teach effectively. Smart, well behaved kids aren't going to improve that situation, and it's going to seriously hamper their ability to get a good education if the teacher has to focus on keeping people in their seats instead of teaching.

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surge 2574 days ago
Smart kids just get held back in school

It's clear to me that A) you don't have kids and don't have any experience with kids in school B) you led a very privileged life and had a better than average experience in school C) think smart kids should be held back or slowed down so the less fortunate kids can keep up and further dumb down and brain drain society because that's how it works in schools D) You're so ignorant on the subject you obviously are a victim of the public education system you're so adamant to defend.

Your analogy isn't worth addressing, its not even close to accurate. Its pointless to continue.

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