- Sep 16, 2012
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youNo one should put their kids in public school if they are unhappy with the local district. Home schooling and private schooling are totally legal options. Keep in mind that public schools have to be everything to everyone......they are the default position originally created to educate the children of those farmers and factory workers who could not afford private schools or tutors.It is stories like yours and the OPs that convinces me that if my kids were still school age, there is no way in hell I would put them in most pubic schools these days. The ones that are still educating kids with real subjects and content are few and far between. Most do much more indoctrinating than educating. I would figure out some way to stay home full time and home school them.
No public schools don't have to be everything to everyone. They were not intended to be that in any generation until the current one. They were expected to educate children--REALLY educate them--in all the basic subjects including proficiency in English, spelling, writing, math, history, geography, social studies, basic science, and if the budget allowed it, they also provided some specialized and advanced course for those with special aptitude or interest including the arts. The best schools prepared students for college and/or to succeed in the real world and that included encouraging them to use logic, reason, and employ critical thinking. Students were required to know certain facts included in their subjects--they might have to know that Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492 for instance--but they were not required to have a specific opinion about that. They were given the facts and encouraged to think about the deeper consequences and results that the facts indicated. The students who were able to think outside the box often were rewarded for that even if the teacher personally disagreed.
Schools should educate, not indoctrinate. To require them to be everything to everyone pretty much insures they won't be able to educate anywhere near as competently as they otherwise would.
A kid should be able to express or act out a harmless fantasy without political correctness tyranny knocking him/her down for it.
While I agree with your goals for education, I disagree that public schools are "indoctrinating" anyone. When the right wants to destroy a public institution, they start by casting it as some sort of liberal bastion out to destroy the country. The current vilification of the public school system is entirely reasonable, on the grounds that they are not providing a quality education, but not on the grounds that it's liberal indoctrination.
I know in MA 90% of teachers are Leftists. Cannot speak for other states.
Define "Leftists".