Comments on: The Shape of Things to Come

By: Bill Brown

Bill Brown — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 21:06:35 +0000

I’ve attended public schools my entire life and my wife has been both a public and private school teacher. I’m not convinced that the source of funding makes too much of a difference at this point.

Environmentalism, multiculturalism, and other irrationalities are rampant in public and private schools. They’re rampant in the parents of public and private school students. They’re rampant in the teacher’s colleges that churn out teachers for both. They’re rampant in the culture.

The only antidote for this is careful parenting and/or homeschooling, which is fraught with its own set of perils.

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 21:04:39 +0000

Rgr that, Myrhaf. I does appear the state universities, though subsidized, are doing better teaching than the public grammar schools. And there is certainly no shortage of crummy private universities whose educational content is questionable at best. (I’m looking at you, University of Phoenix, DeVry, ITT Tech, Collins College, etc.) But the creme-de-la-creme universities seem to be overwhelmingly private institutions, which is telling, and there are all too many state university “graduates” in today’s grade-inflated world who can barely even put their pants on properly. I suppose it’s just a cost-benefit equation first and foremost.

By: Myrhaf

Myrhaf — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:55:15 +0000

I agree with you Mike, although I’m not sure about lumping state colleges in with public education. The difference is that somebody has to pay tuition in college, whereas K-12 is free. I think that tuition changes things a bit.

I don’t know that there is much difference in quality between state colleges and private universities. My education at Cal State in the 1980′s was not bad. The place has become much PC since then.

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:08:49 +0000

“Public education has destroyed my generation.”

I’m going to credit you with a VAST understatement, Matt. You are absolutely square on the target. Honestly, if I had the time to dedicate to doing it well, I would open up a blog called “Public Education is Ruining Society” or something like that and post well-researched material addressing the topic.

This is a particular pet peeve of mine because bloated public school administrations are a huge budgetary problem in my native Arizona, while the balance sheets for charter and parochial schools look better every year — so naturally our state legislature is pushing to revoke the tax credit that people get for choosing the charter or parochial schools, to conserve state funds for the bloated public school system. Which, by the way, is in our state constitution and cannot be abolished.

I attended public schools from 1st through 3rd grade and pseudo-public university for my B.S. and J.D. (Arizona State). From 4th through 12th grade, I attended parochial schools. Granted, the plural of anecdote is not “data,” but I can verify firsthand that there was a substantial difference in the quality and content of the instruction.

By: L-C

L-C — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 01:02:11 +0000

You have no idea how right you are, Myrhaf. Soon, you might not have to merely imagine the scope this attitude could attain.

By: Not_That

Not_That — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 19:35:04 +0000

9am-11am huh… How can they stand such long business hours?

By: Matt F.

Matt F. — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 15:53:32 +0000

And good luck convincing most of those voters (who, even if they believe something needs to be fixed, think they can do so by voting into office someone with a fundamentally similar philosophy but a slightly different method of implementing it) of what is wrong and, more, WHY it is wrong.

Public education has destroyed my generation.