U.S. Court Upholds Same-sex Teaching to Children

[Hogeye]

YOU entertained the possibility that it would be better if we did away with state schools and everyone was home schooled.

No, but you are half-right. I did entertain the possibility that it would be better if we did away with government schools. I never remotely hinted that everyone should be homeschooled. You, Doug, are the one who first brought up homeschooling.

Homeschooling is just one of many alternatives to government schooling. There is also private schools, online education (aka distance learning), roving tutors, and any combination of the above. I suspect that in a free market many would take the best of each method, tailored to the learning style of the child. Lectures from world-reknowned professors online, parental encouragement and oversight, with trained tutors coming around periodically. I suspect that herding a bunch of children to a centralized location for indoctrination will someday be considered as barbaric as clitorectomies.

It is known that most Americans are very stupid compared with people in other countries...

Yes, just as it is known that most USAmericans are "educated" in government schools.

We have digressed from the earlier discussions of 1) the stupidity of trying to shield children from the fact that homosexuality exists (everyone agreed) and 2) whether the State should force parents to pay for and force their children to attend lessons the parents consider immoral or undesirable. (As usual, I am the only one taking the libertarian view that giving the State this power is questionable.) We got a little sidetracked on the question of efficacy of homeschooling.

[Doug]

I did entertain the possibility that it would be better if we did away with government schools. I never remotely hinted that everyone should be homeschooled. You, Doug, are the one who first brought up homeschooling.

Homeschooling is just one of many alternatives to government schooling. There is also private schools, online education (aka distance learning), roving tutors, and any combination of the above. I suspect that in a free market many would take the best of each method, tailored to the learning style of the child.

DOUG
Few people could afford to pay for private schools, online education, and so on. That is not realistic at all.

Name one culture that has maintained a high degree of literacy without government-sponsored public schools. Show that literacy can be imparted to a majority of the population without public schools.

Just literacy. I'm not even asking about other skills.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Comparing home schooling to public schools is like comparing private schools - doesn't work because public schools include undiagnosed special ed problems and most, if not all, the kids under the poverty line, most of whom were not ready for school when they started and just get farther behind the longer their problems go unaddressed. If you restricted the comparison to public and private schoolers from the same socio-economic classes, you'd find the results to be closer.

The number one advantage a home schooler has that public schoolers don't have is an adult who can stay at home and work with them. The stats are there for anyone who wants to look. One-on-one education is now and always will be superior to one-on-thirty. The "each one teach one" program is why Cuba has a 99.1% literacy rate (the last time I checked - may have changes a few tenths of a percent since then). That means the kid lives in a family that can afford for an adult to stay home and teach said kid - and a family that respects literacy (can't read the bible without it), even if not science. Check out the families in America who can afford a stay-at-home adult and are willing to do the work (and it is work).

[Hogeye]

Name one culture that has maintained a high degree of literacy without government-sponsored public schools. Show that literacy can be imparted to a majority of the population without public schools.

That's easy: New England in Revolutionary War times had a literacy rate of around 90%. Most of the American (English) colonies had high literacy rates, except for blacks in the plantation colonies where the State forbid educating blacks.

Now that we have the internet, the "objective conditions" exist for 98%+ literacy rates without any government schools. And it will likely happen, just as email is slowly but surely making the govt post office obsolete. Wired personal computers in the home are, IMU, spreading faster than telephones or TVs did, so even the poor are likely to be able to take advantage of telelearning.

[Doug]

Name one culture that has maintained a high degree of literacy without government-sponsored public schools. Show that literacy can be imparted to a majority of the population without public schools.

That's easy: New England in Revolutionary War times had a literacy rate of around 90%. Most of the American (English) colonies had high literacy rates, except for blacks in the plantation colonies where the State forbid educating blacks.

DOUG
The Puritans emphasized reading the Bible. The children were typically literate but stupid. Yes, the colonists were mostly literate, but we don't have good numbers on this. Usually, the 70%-100% literacy rates are based almost entirely on the number of signatures on contracts by the relevant parties. In other words, if a person signed his or her name, it is assumed that person was literate. It is also assumed that a certain percentage of people (estimated at about 50%) who could not sign their names were nevertheless able to read.

However, these figures are skewed. Not everyone entered into written contracts. This is the fallacy of biased sampling.

And there were public schools:

The foundations for our present-day public school system were laid early in the Colonial period. A Massachusetts law of 1647 provided "(1) That every town having fifty householders should at once appoint a teacher of reading and writing, and provide for his wages in such manner as the town might determine; and (2) That every town having one hundred householders must provide a grammar school to fit youths for the university, under a penalty of 5 pounds for failure to do so" (Knowles, 1977, p. 6). This basic arrangement for a common school set the stage for the subsequent emergence of the tax-supported school system that provides for the largest number of programs in the contemporary AELS.

See here.

The latter source also has this:

If the ability to write one's name (rather than just making a mark on a document) is evidence of literacy, then, excluding American Indians and African Americans, there was near universal literacy, in excess of 80-90 percent, for both men and women by the end of the eighteenth century (Perlmann & Shirley, 1991). Of course, all such studies of literacy during these early years of the nation depend on samples of adults who do not represent the entire adult population of the colonies and so are contentious on the basis of sampling bias. For instance, Herndon (1996) presents data from documents of "transients" (nonpropertied persons) showing that, just as in contemporary times, literacy rates for New England's poor, including whites, American Indians, and African Americans, were considerably lower than the rates estimated on the basis of property document signatures. Kaestle (1991a) provides a critique of literacy estimates that rely on the signing of documents such as military records and deeds.

Our U.S. society is struggling with basic literacy right now. It is unrealistic in the extreme to expect that parents or tutors could take up the slack if public schools disappeared. It is utterly preposterous.

Now that we have the internet, the "objective conditions" exist for 98%+ literacy rates without any government schools. And it will likely happen, just as email is slowly but surely making the govt post office obsolete. Wired personal computers in the home are, IMU, spreading faster than telephones or TVs did, so even the poor are likely to be able to take advantage of telelearning.

DOUG
Given that the Internet has so much bullshit on it, why in the world would we expect a decently educated public in the absence of trained educators? That would be like saying that if we removed the Encyclopedia Britannica and Encyclopedia Americana and instead allowed uneducated Joe Blow to make his own encyclopedia, people would have as reliable a source as before. That is absurd.

[Dardedar]

That would be like saying that if we removed the Encyclopedia Britannica and Encyclopedia Americana and instead allowed uneducated Joe Blow to make his own encyclopedia, people would have as reliable a source as before. That is absurd.

DAR
Just imagine, every group having their own encyclopedia. The libertarians, the Mormons, the Jehovah's Witnesses (it would be short), the creationists, GW deniers, the Klan, each with their own pet bias and prejudices built in. I wonder which group would make the world's most absurd encyclopedia?

Flat earthers would be good contenders but they have pretty much fizzled out.

D.

[Savonarola]

Just imagine, every group having their own encyclopedia. The libertarians, the Mormons, the Jehovah's Witnesses (it would be short), the creationists, GW deniers, the Klan, each with their own pet bias and prejudices built in. I wonder which group would make the world's most absurd encyclopedia?

Here's a start: Conservapedia (complete with the evolution entry).

[Dardedar]

DAR
I my. I am so glad you posted that. You knocked it out of the park! Their young earth creationist page was a doosey too. And check out their seven Commandments. Number one is hilarious considering their evolution entry, and the four is just bizarre:

"The Commandments

1. Everything you post must be true and verifiable.

4. When referencing dates based on the approximate birth of Jesus, give appropriate credit for the basis of the date (B.C. or A.D.). "BCE" and "CE" are unacceptable substitutes because they deny the historical basis."

DAR
You can't use the standard scholarly reference for dating. You have to use fundy speak.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

The "youths" being readied for university were male. Females got enough "dame school" to be able to read the bible and "cypher" enough to keep household accounts. The public school system in New England produced a relatively literate landed male population with a semi-literate landed female population - and a basically functionally illiterate worker/servant population. Doug is correct that the records using signatures biases the data towards literacy - consider what the signature was on - usually land deeds. As to the rest of the colonies, the wealthy had tutors or sent their sons to private schools and the remainder of the population was illiterate to barely literate. In an agrarian society, literacy isn't as necessary as a strong back for the working classes.

[Hogeye]

Yes, of course estimates on literacy way back then are rough, but even the lower estimates indicate a high literacy. Note that the quote you cite about a law requiring schools in towns does not imply they were government schools; on the contrary they point out that such extortion-funded schools came later. ("This basic arrangement for a common school set the stage for the subsequent emergence of the tax-supported school system...") The "public schools" movement started in the 1830s, led by Horace Mann. The goal was not to improve literacy or education, but to indoctrinate "model citizens," i.e. turn rabble papist immigrant kids into good protestant pietists.

Given that the Internet has so much bullshit on it, why in the world would we expect a decently educated public in the absence of trained educators?

Where in left field did that come from? ("... the absence of trained educators.") The internet allows more access to trained educators than ever before! That's one of the main ideas of telelearning.

This is one of those cases where I prefer the decisions of free individuals and parents, even though some may choose badly, while you prefer leaving decisions to the holy central State, though it may choose badly for everyone under its dominion (and grow more powerful generally.)

[Doug]

Given that the Internet has so much bullshit on it, why in the world would we expect a decently educated public in the absence of trained educators?

Where in left field did that come from? ("... the absence of trained educators.") The internet allows more access to trained educators than ever before! That's one of the main ideas of telelearning.

DOUG
And the main problem is that parents are usually so stupid in this country that they have little ability to discern the difference between, say, an expert on political science and a nut that can put up a good website.

So, again, why should we expect that education would improve if all of a sudden we allow thousands of idiots to take the place of trained educators when we already have a serious education problem in the U.S?

This is one of those cases where I prefer the decisions of free individuals and parents, even though some may choose badly, while you prefer leaving decisions to the holy central State, though it may choose badly for everyone under its dominion (and grow more powerful generally.)

So it is better for parents to make mistakes and have an uneducated public than for the people to band together (as in a STATE) and hire experts in education to train their kids? I don't think so.

[Hogeye]

And the main problem is that parents are usually so stupid in this country that they have little ability to discern the difference between, say, an expert on political science and a nut that can put up a good website.

With the alternative: We have rulers like Bush and cronies who have both little ability and perverse incentives to choose experts. It's a no-brainer - I choose the alternative where many (but admittedly not all) make reasonable choices, over having dumb powergrubbing rulers deciding for everyone. I prefer diversity and pluralism, the remedy of more freedom for the ill of ignorance, rather than putting all societies eggs in one corrupt statist basket.

So, again, why should we expect that education would improve if all of a sudden we allow thousands of idiots to take the place of trained educators when we already have a serious education problem in the U.S?

As you admit, leaving it to the State with its ruler-take-all idiocy has given us "a serious education problem." Let's try freedom instead, where parents and students are allowed to choose. Many will choose wisely. Your blind faith in the choices of political rulers is amazing. You admit they do poorly, complain loudly about govt ignoring science, but your only solution is more of the same! When will you admit the State has the fecal touch?

BTW, I support people banding together voluntarily. But this is not the State. The State is people herded together by a legal monopoly of force, as we've discussed. Voluntary interaction is society, the antithesis of State.