Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to That's what the government keeps telling us.

All right, how about this?
Mary Anne — (archived)

Without a paper, you can't get a professional job unless Mom & Dad own the business.

Sure, people can make a living mowing 600 lawns. But you need a diploma, high school at least, to get real work.

If the family can't afford private school, and the family can't afford one stay-at-home parent to homeschool the children, where does that paper come from?

The days are long gone when my grandfather could quit school, do physical labor on the railroad to raise a family, and become an educated man on his own without paper to open a door for him.

It's easy to trash public education. It's a big fat target, overburdened with too much added to its mission for the teachers to actually teach. Say it went away tomorrow. No, say it went away, planned, in the next 5 to 10 years. What would you put in its place?

If the replacement system is completely decentralized, with no government involvement, what would you offer to future employers in the way of benchmark achievement as a way to judge the qualifications of graduates? Will the hiring people have to open an office to evaluate graduation projects, administer and score examinations, look at portfolios? Or will everything old become new again, with preference given by professional employersto Ivy League-type schools and their supporting network of private feeder schools?

If every parent controls his or her own child's education, what does a diploma mean?

To touch back on the point that started this, if creationists control science education for their children (they will never control mine, nor my grandchildren's!), do their children get a real science education?

Does it matter? Hell, yes. Not everyone becomes a scientist or an engineer, but everyone in a democracy grows up to be a voter. If we are to have government-backed science and engineering initiatives, we must have scientifically literate citizens.

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