Hi Tom,

comments interspersed:

What's really funny is that the original public school system was created not to educate students as much as it was to create good little citizens of the State. In other words, a tool of collectivism.

Yes and no. It seems safe to say that they were the byproduct of multiple individual agendas. If you will recall the most educated classes in the middle ages were the clergy. They held the books and passed on writing and reading to subsequent generations.

In the early periods in America (c.1700-1800) it probably would be accurate to say that many learned to read using the bible at home or as part of a church based schooling.

The public school afforded an opportunity not only for state-based education - but a method of early public education that was not separated from the church.

Good citizens of the state in reality should have mimicked the goals you cherish - community and family based activism. So the public school in itself does not degrade this ideal. Ideally the teachers are local residents, familiar with the community and the families who live in the region.

It is only with subsequent bureacratic impositions upon the little school - that the great state collectivism agenda makes itself manifest.

PC books, busing and the other things for example such as teachers unions acted to degrade education and shift it towards the collectivist stance. Agenda driven education where a whole day is spent discussing and celebrating Kwanzaa as a form of encouraging diversity is another example of these collective agendas which degrade education. The year is so filled with PC bunk - that the teachers hardly have time to cover the meat of the curriculum!

So I don't exactly agree with you that the public school was a bad idea. It, like Congress, was born of good intentions. Unfortunately over time these things can degrade as they are used as tools to subvert and control rather than educate and enrich. Instead of giving facts and letting the children make up their own mind - they are dished agenda soundbites on a platter and must submit or be ostracized. Who, for example, is going to get up in class and talk about Martin Luther King being a plagiarist? The day that happens is the day that same kid is permanently targeted by the teachers who will make his/her life a living hell.


Read up on Horace Mann, the "Father of American Education," who believed that "social harmony" was the primary goal of schooling. Whether Mann is regarded as a hero or not depends, of course, on who's writing the articles.

I think since he was largely self-educated he envisioned that public schools would achieve what book-learning had for him. Social harmony is a noble goal until it is forced and compulsory. Indeed, public schools should ideally be non-compulsory so that they recover the value to the child and parents they largely no longer possess. Schools would naturally make themselves more appealing and effective when they can't take the pupils and $$$ for granted.

Mann is neither demon nor saint, but reflects his own values arrived at within the time period in which he lived.

In the old days on the farms they had book learning from subscription sellers. I have a number of what at first appear to be encyclopedia sets from 1890-1914 but which are really condensed schooling "cyclopedias" and cover topics as diverse as famous diplomats to social manners and etiquette. They were sold to farmers by traveling salesmen and ordered by ads in magazines. Some are surprisingly thorough and if learned by a student today would surely make them an A or B student. Indeed the first encyclopedia sets in America were largely advertised as self-learning sets providing a family with all the education they are likley to need.

It is not surprising in the least that many self-taught or home schooled students are the brightest of all. They are naturally being taught by people who care more about them - themselves or their family. It seems ridiculous to expect that a teacher will spend the same amount of time or effort with any individual pupil to achieve the same results. A few of us are lucky and through our proclivities or personalities attract a teacher or two who will go out of their way to see we get a good educational start, provide more challenging material, etc.

But what about the rest?

SDAI-Tech1