If anybody in Europe made such a proposal, I would call them "crazy," but in America such a department has given birth to a bureaucracy of idiots whose goal is to outperform each other in proving how "inclusive" and morally righteous they are. But I wonder if abolishing it, the ideology behind it will die. I am afraid not.
Nowhere is this more evident than in Portland, Oregon. 30 years of left leaning school boards have placed us last in many nationally measured performance categories. The ultra far left teachers union shut our children out of their classrooms for 3 weeks, and when they achieved their goals, many teachers walked away from their agreement to teach extra days to make up for lost classroom hours. The School Board did nothing to punish the miscreants, thereby giving them the message that they can renege on their promises with impunity in the future.
There was no Department of Education when I grew up in the 60's and 70's and I still learned that 2+2=4 and that males and females are 2 different reproductive states/sexes. I also got a snazzy Presidential Physical Fitness patch 'cause being physically fit was a thing.
What is absolutely evident, is that the divide between an American culture that has been psychologically managed and manipulated to totally trust and depend on a government education framework to indoctrinate kids psyche; and one which has surpassed beyond it with the wisdom, respect and intelligence that is required to be independent, confident and capable of Thinking, is what the US is faced with.
Time to create a new education framework, and avoid the government directed education system all together. . . Homeschooling, community-independent run universities, and online protocols with millions of discussions, creative ventures of all ages.
Must break the monopoly of public education and give the consumer choice. This will force school boards, administrators, teachers to be accountable to their students and caregivers.
The answer is to shut down current schools immediately and issue vouchers for the total amount spent on current education that families can use to establish new Charter type schools designed to provide a better education for their children! These new schools would bid on the existing facilities, providing proscribed performance levels for the basics of education and using the balance of the school day for subjects that are important to the families in each school.
The new schools will be able to hire only good teachers and outstanding administrators, and the savings of running the schools quasi privately will enable them to pay higher salaries and offer more extras!
Will education being left to the states be able to give parents different choices according to their state and reduce the bureaucracy that face parents? Education is also under control of unions. How to get unions on board or bypassed? School trustees also
Honest question: if everything is transferred to the states, who is gonna check Education in blue states don't follow the woke path? No department will be there to control them.
👍🙂 Though I wonder ... "According to a story that was told by a historian a 🧙♀️ Woman Mage transformed her husband into 🐸 Frog because he gave her as a gift a 💍 Ring of copper for their tenth wedding anniversary." ... 😉🙂
So what does the DoE actually do? What standards exist now everywhere? Well, it certainly isn't either literacy and/or critical thinking, to judge by various vox pops where youngsters claim France is in Paris etc.. and its language is 'British'.
The best part of 200 years ago, ordinary British people decided to pay their local churches for tuition. The result was the fastest growth rate of literacy in history. No 'experts' were involved. That came later, when first the Dame Schools, then the Mechanics' Institutes and finally the Grammar Schools were closed by the Philosopher Kings who know all, see all.
Great article and well put. I would hate to be under your scrutiny and criticism, but the way you have put it we would all be better off in the end. Thanks
Mill, writing 'On Liberty' in 1859 (11 years before the Foster Education Act nationalised education) maintained state education was simply clone production, ensuring uniformity of opinion, and sterility of the imagination. PB's analysis describes the enormous cost of ignoring this.
But the question is: What are we going to do now? One suggestion for a free system might be to try to ensure teachers' innovations and experience will be taken seriously, for we must start to learn by our mistakes as well as successes. The use of Socratian methods on which, for example, science is based, should replace lousy plodding textbooks with no purpose except the 'exam' and which destroy creativity. However any of this may be, it's going to be a long haul.
In a major school of education I attended in the sixties there was a saying: if you can't do, teach, if you can't teach, teach those who do. In fairness, there were great profs and little ideology. I have reason to believe that the opposite is true today. Keep up the good work.
In my next life, intelligent, thoughtful, interesting people such as Peter, Bari Weiss and Rand Paul will be my neighbors...
We are in this life…
If anybody in Europe made such a proposal, I would call them "crazy," but in America such a department has given birth to a bureaucracy of idiots whose goal is to outperform each other in proving how "inclusive" and morally righteous they are. But I wonder if abolishing it, the ideology behind it will die. I am afraid not.
Raze it the ground and salt the earth beneath it.
Nowhere is this more evident than in Portland, Oregon. 30 years of left leaning school boards have placed us last in many nationally measured performance categories. The ultra far left teachers union shut our children out of their classrooms for 3 weeks, and when they achieved their goals, many teachers walked away from their agreement to teach extra days to make up for lost classroom hours. The School Board did nothing to punish the miscreants, thereby giving them the message that they can renege on their promises with impunity in the future.
Thank you Peter.
You’re welcome!
There was no Department of Education when I grew up in the 60's and 70's and I still learned that 2+2=4 and that males and females are 2 different reproductive states/sexes. I also got a snazzy Presidential Physical Fitness patch 'cause being physically fit was a thing.
The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America: A Chronological Paper Trail; Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt, 1999.
Some of her lectures are still available on the video platforms.
What is absolutely evident, is that the divide between an American culture that has been psychologically managed and manipulated to totally trust and depend on a government education framework to indoctrinate kids psyche; and one which has surpassed beyond it with the wisdom, respect and intelligence that is required to be independent, confident and capable of Thinking, is what the US is faced with.
Time to create a new education framework, and avoid the government directed education system all together. . . Homeschooling, community-independent run universities, and online protocols with millions of discussions, creative ventures of all ages.
Here is what Ron Paul said yesterday:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2024/11/ron-paul/get-the-government-out-of-the-classroom/
Will parents get a voucher system for their kids?
Must break the monopoly of public education and give the consumer choice. This will force school boards, administrators, teachers to be accountable to their students and caregivers.
The answer is to shut down current schools immediately and issue vouchers for the total amount spent on current education that families can use to establish new Charter type schools designed to provide a better education for their children! These new schools would bid on the existing facilities, providing proscribed performance levels for the basics of education and using the balance of the school day for subjects that are important to the families in each school.
The new schools will be able to hire only good teachers and outstanding administrators, and the savings of running the schools quasi privately will enable them to pay higher salaries and offer more extras!
Will education being left to the states be able to give parents different choices according to their state and reduce the bureaucracy that face parents? Education is also under control of unions. How to get unions on board or bypassed? School trustees also
Honest question: if everything is transferred to the states, who is gonna check Education in blue states don't follow the woke path? No department will be there to control them.
Think Exodus. When the "blue" states run out of willing sacrificial lambs they will change.
Indeed. Peter's insistence that "the Department of Education must be eradicated" seems a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Though it and many other Departments certainly seem in need of a serious "housecleaning" -- new brooms and all that ... 😉🙂
🧙🏼♀️
👍🙂 Though I wonder ... "According to a story that was told by a historian a 🧙♀️ Woman Mage transformed her husband into 🐸 Frog because he gave her as a gift a 💍 Ring of copper for their tenth wedding anniversary." ... 😉🙂
https://www.sweasy26.com/emoji-dictionary/woman-mage/
So what does the DoE actually do? What standards exist now everywhere? Well, it certainly isn't either literacy and/or critical thinking, to judge by various vox pops where youngsters claim France is in Paris etc.. and its language is 'British'.
The best part of 200 years ago, ordinary British people decided to pay their local churches for tuition. The result was the fastest growth rate of literacy in history. No 'experts' were involved. That came later, when first the Dame Schools, then the Mechanics' Institutes and finally the Grammar Schools were closed by the Philosopher Kings who know all, see all.
So they tell us.
Laboratories of Democracy. As with criminal justice reform in California, so to with education, the voters will figure it out.
Honestly, I am wondering about all the parent consumers who are flocking to the gender specialists in my town. Scratching my head.
Great article and well put. I would hate to be under your scrutiny and criticism, but the way you have put it we would all be better off in the end. Thanks
Mill, writing 'On Liberty' in 1859 (11 years before the Foster Education Act nationalised education) maintained state education was simply clone production, ensuring uniformity of opinion, and sterility of the imagination. PB's analysis describes the enormous cost of ignoring this.
But the question is: What are we going to do now? One suggestion for a free system might be to try to ensure teachers' innovations and experience will be taken seriously, for we must start to learn by our mistakes as well as successes. The use of Socratian methods on which, for example, science is based, should replace lousy plodding textbooks with no purpose except the 'exam' and which destroy creativity. However any of this may be, it's going to be a long haul.
In a major school of education I attended in the sixties there was a saying: if you can't do, teach, if you can't teach, teach those who do. In fairness, there were great profs and little ideology. I have reason to believe that the opposite is true today. Keep up the good work.
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