[WillAdams]

I would argue that a child has a right to a certain number of years of education.

The best school which I attended divided classes between academic and social --- the latter were attended with one's age peers (so homeroom, social studies, PE, &c.) while the former were attended at one's ability level (with a cap of four years through 4th grade, so I was in 4th grade but taking 8th grade science, English, and history classes) and for older students, some teachers were accredited as faculty at a nearby college, so it was possible to take college courses while still in high school --- it was even possible to earn a college degree (or even multiple degrees) at high school graduation.

There was also a trade school track for students so inclined.

[bitmasher9]

> I would argue that a child has a right to a certain number of years of education.

I would also argue society is better if its people are more educated.

[quacked]

I admit this leans into pedantry, but I think it's important not to conflate "amount of education received" with "amount of knowledge possessed". In the US our people are more educated than they've ever been, but I wouldn't say they're more knowledgeable than ever.

I completely agree that the more knowledgeable a society is the better off it is, but if the education industry is allowed to prop itself up with the widespread belief that more years of education necessarily result in a better-off population, you get the military-industrial-style propagation of institutions, loans, debt, and wasted time that we're familiar with today.

[ndriscoll]

To that point, how many university educated American adults have actually read, say, Locke? It's been freely and easily accessible for decades, e.g.:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7370

How many university (liberal arts even) educated Americans have read the Federalist Papers? The Declaration of Independence? The Constitution?

[aleph_minus_one]

> How many university (liberal arts even) educated Americans have read the Federalist Papers? The Declaration of Independence? The Constitution?

To give a counterpoint:

C. P. Snow. The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution.

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures (overview)

> https://web.archive.org/web/20170508085255/https://www.rbkc....

[ndriscoll]

I don't think that's really a counterpoint. My point was that I get the impression that even those in the humanities seem to be losing familiarity with liberal ideas. So it's even worse now (or we've just lied to ourselves as we pretend to expand access to higher education).

[UncleMeat]

Where do you get this impression from? Faculty? Published research? My observation is that people working in the humanities have a deeper and wider reading list than at any point in prior history.

If you are complaining about students then I don't see what the problem is with not having read these particular texts. The humanities is so incredibly wide and it is good that we have widened curricula to not just focus everybody down a particular reading list of western intellectual tradition. A humanities education isn't there to just pump out classical liberals.

A polisci major who studies ancient chinese politics or 21st century dictatorships is just as legitimate as somebody who studies Locke and western liberal democracy.

[WillAdams]

Those texts were a standard part of grade school social studies when I was young, and my children read all in the course of a typical public education long before graduating.

[ndriscoll]

They might be part of the curriculum, but apparently ~half the country doesn't know what we just celebrated[0], so I somehow doubt they actually did their reading. It's pretty easy to pass or even do well in classes without really engaging with the material at all, even at the university level. Like I got an A in a philosophy course by just reading the professor's notes on exam morning and spitting them back out on an essay. I've still never gone back and actually read Grotius.

[0] https://www.npr.org/2026/07/03/nx-s1-5881451/cato-institute-...

[WillAdams]

By definition, half of the population is of below average intelligence.

As my daughter said to her boyfriend in college, "Welcome to the upper half of the bell curve."

[WillAdams]

Absolutely agree, and if we could work up a way for there to be endless education, I'd be down for that (and would sign up in a heartbeat --- I'd love to have the wherewithal to pursue a PhD --- one of my most favourite books is Roger Zelazny's _Doorways in the Sand_ and a big part of that is envy for the protagonist's situation, his rich uncle's will provides for his full tuition, room, board, and a generous stipend for so long as he attends his uncle's _alma mater_ which he has been doing for decades --- naturally, the story opens with his having been assigned a special advisor whose assignment is to get him graduated).

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61998.Doorways_in_the_Sa...

[Bratmon]

I'm genuinely curious why you think that.

Like, how specifically has our society gotten better since High School became universal and college became the norm?

[WillAdams]

Not the person you are responding to, but please see:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48870955

and consider how cancer used to be a death sentence and now, many forms are quite survivable.

EDIT: Moreover, what is the great benefit of vast swaths of uneducated peons? Do you really feel that the oligarchy needs more minions to sway?

>The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines which he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots. --- H.L. Mencken

[blfr]

Is it? We have piled on tons of new years of education, are we that much better off as a society, more cultured than, say, the French in the 50s when most people had like 8 classes under their belt?

[parineum]

> are we that much better off as a society ... than ... the French in the 50s

Everyone in the western world is, including the French.

> are we ... more cultured than, say, the French in the 50s

That's a pretty meaningless question to me.

[ericd]

Sounds great, if you don’t mind sharing, what school was it? We have a couple of young kids that that seems like maybe a good fit for.

[WillAdams]

It was a school in rural Mississippi which was next to an Air Force Base and filled primarily w/ children of base personnel --- apparently it was changed away from that shortly after my father retired, I had thought because of legal challenges, but that was from the uncertain organic memory of 10 year old me of half a century ago.

[selimthegrim]

Was this Keesler by any chance?

[WillAdams]

No, Columbus.

[ericd]

Dang, ah well. Thanks for answering, anyway.

[WillAdams]

With the wide variety of charter schools which were set up, I'm surprised it wasn't tried --- I would really like to see this educational mechanism revisited and re-tried --- seems like a good fit for remote learning (remote classes are academic and done at ability level, in-person classes are social and done by age level w/ peers.

[ericd]

Yeah, good point, especially at the higher levels. Our public high school offered differential equations as the level after calc only because they randomly had a really exceptionally capable math teacher who was a teacher as a passion project after he'd made his money elsewhere, but most schools don't have access to that sort of capability. Remote learning could offer that sort of headroom in every subject. I guess local colleges sometimes offer that ability.

Maybe some charters do, I'm definitely not an expert.

[WillAdams]

One of the big regrets in my life is that the tiny rural county school system I graduated from couldn't find a math teacher qualified to teach calculus for my junior or senior year, which precluded applying to pretty much every college I was interested in.