Since my days in the early grades of school, there’s been a lot of educational progress in America.
Not so much in the public schools, but in alternatives to them. When I was young, public schools were not only paid for by taxpayers, they were near-monopolies. Parochial schools and other religious-based programs were few. Home-schooling was uncommon, technically illegal in most states and locales.
How things have changed! Not enough, mind you. But the general political culture has improved enough that charter schools are often voted in, and there exist working voucher systems, if of a limited scope, in several areas of these United States.
In Britain, the situation is also opening up. The Labour Party is pitching its support for “parent-led academies in areas of educational need.” Party outreach spokesman Tristram Hunt, who had previously snarked that such projects were “vanity project[s] for yummy mummies,” takes it all back, now insisting that his (quasi-socialist) Labour Party now backs “enterprise and innovation.”
Britain is ruled by a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, with Labour on the outs, so of course Labour could be said to be grasping at straws. It’s cheap to try freedom when you have little power. Conservative politicians insist that the latest statements are nothing but empty promises, and that Labour is still socialistically clinging to the old notion of schools “run by bureaucrats.”
But hey: notice that freer solutions are on the table.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
1 reply on “Progress in Talk About Schools”
The school in WA state failed my eldest. I home schooled my youngest and wish I could have home schooled the first one. Night and day difference in the education retention as well as their self esteem and their whole personality. The oldest has fear and failure as their impression of themselves as that is what the school employees kept telling them. That brought on a lot of self destruction and acting out. Needless to say, I waited a long time to have another child due to all of this. The home schooled child has a try it see what happens attitude. If it doesn’t work out, try something else. The try it attitude has given that child many opportunities and brought a large amount of supporters and admirers to them because of it. These vast experiences of the home schooled child were included on their application for a private scholarship for college worth $40,000. The receipt of this scholarship was a blessing as well as validation to the skeptics. The elder child finally got a GED at age 38 with lots of cheering and encouragement from home to get through it. Hell would freeze over before I would put another child in public school. Common core curriculum is not an improvement, I have looked at it and see the failings of children who have been in it for one year.