28 November 2005

Public Schools, or Indoctrination Centers?

Noel Epstein has an Op-Ed in the Washington Post about the nature of public schools in the United States.

This piece is adapted from his upcoming book The American Kibbutz. Kibbutzes were a product of Israeli socialism and zionism and were designed to inculcate national and religious pride and a specific set of values.

The implications from his article is that the American public school system has filled a similar function here. He ignores the more troubling aspects of these implications.

Who decides what values are inculcated? Are schools the appropriate venue for this indoctrination in a pluralistic society (we are far different from Israel which is specifically organized around a single religion, and we've never been as socialist as Israel was at one time).

Recent posts at Althouse about teachers in Wisconsin and a teacher in Vermont suggest that there is an eagerness to instill a particular set of values in students from the youngest in the system to the oldest.

Up through the 50s a white middle-class monoculture steeped in Christian values was the official prescription for all students and regions (it was never as simple and unified as the nostalgia industrial complex would have people believe). With the break-up of this starting in the 60s, the 'parent' function of schools should have also receded, but instead it seems to have increased alarmingly.

It's my opinion (and it's mostly a very unpopular I concede) that the current system is so corrupt, so ill suited to efficiently impart knowledge, so beholden to teacher's unions, and so eager to instill a vague secular humanist, PC, multi-cultural stew of socialism and superstition that the only solution is to kill the beast completely.

End public school education, it's a failed experiment in it's current form. It's failing the poorest the most, and the functions of the system could be provided far more effectively by leaner, more modular, more responsive, more diverse, and more relevant private schools.

What sounds radical now, may sound like common sense in a decade, it wouldn't be the first time.

2 comments:

Pooh said...

To head of the deep end of slippery slopes and strawmen...yes vague secular humanism with a pinch of pluralism is terrible. Especially in an explicitly pluralist, seclar society. I'd much rather have a madras (or the Christian/Jewish/Hindi/Buddhist equivalent) down the street from the home school of Prussian Blue. Because that would foster open debate.

Ok, sorry, its early and I haven't had my morning go-juice yet, bt in an increasingly polarized society it seems like public schools are one of the few places where various backgrounds still come together. The other, of course, being American Idol, so maybe its not a good thing after all...

P.S. my verification word is "qivum" don't know what that means, but sounds naughty, no?

XWL said...

I think this is another agree to disagree moment.

I freely admit that my view on public schools is radical, unpopular and fringe.

But I've scene the corrosive influence of the squishy sort of non-religion secular humanist religion has in schools.

I think that the huge cognitive dissonance created by being force fed one message at school and being given a completely different message at home is detrimental.

But that's me. Your mileage may vary.

and if you want dirrrty sounding verifications try this one 'fgjkqkme'