It Takes a Collectivist

Children are individuals who are part of a family, whether that be purely in a biological sense or more traditional sense. I won’t debate those points. However, what Ms. Harris-​Perry does not get is what part a government should play in the manner with which the citizens are educated. We, as a society, decide to “invest” in the society’s future by allocating funds for the education of our citizens. The amount is not so much important as how we spend these funds. Gather a dozen educators and you may end up with 13 different ways to educate. Unfortunately for many of us who were subjected to these trials and errors, each successive administration, as far back as 1953 (Dept. of Health, Education and Welfare) and getting a kickstart in 1980 when it was made a separate cabinet level department, began experimenting on the different theories and hypotheses of how best to educate children and then codified these theories and hypotheses into federal law. The testing of theories and hypotheses are best left to academia where a bad or unwanted result can be remedied relatively quickly. When Congress gets involved there is little chance a bad result can be agreed upon much less dealt with in a rapid manner.

“For decades social critics in the United States and throughout the Western world have complained that “property” rights too often take precedence over “human” rights, with the result that people are treated unequally and have unequal opportunities.” ~thought of the day, side bar, thisiscommonsense

And that reminds me, when anyone speaks of “human rights,” and of a primary education as a “human right,” it is very probable that what is being communicated is compulsory and forced participation. In this way, what was portrayed to the public as an agreement that all children deserve the opportunity to go to school, is being transformed to the requirement through force that all attend state schools. If you doubt what I say, look at what is being done to prevent homeschooling in Europe, esp. Germany. (Now there are many political parties who demand children belong to the state, and the Germans of all people ought to know better.) 

“Human rights” are not individual liberties, but their exact opposites.

Most of the decisions that are being made on this ar being made by people that have no training or experience in education and are being made without any studies to substantiate that any of the millions of tax dollars are actually going to be used for something effective. Perfect example is Common Core. Instead it is being decided by the well connected, using “common sense”. The same rational that once held that the earth was the center of the solar system.

And the travesty is that we have the perfect test chambers with the individual states, where programs could be piloted to see if ANY of them are actually effective before foisitng them on the entire country and creating an entrenched constituency that uses inertia to prevent it from ever being undone, sucking down tax dollars forever.

Common sense would dictate, that since test scores have actually declined in the past 40 years annder the aegis of the Department of Educashun, that the Department of Ed. is having a negative effect and shoudl be prohibited from messing with the kids any more.