-=> Quoting Mike Angwin to Jean Halverson <=-
 JH> More than that, if  we made education the sole responsibility of paren
 JH> then parents would probably take more interest than they already do.
 JH> I've heard soooo many teachers say that the quality of a child's educa
 JH> depends on how involved the parents are. I'm all for ending compulsory
 JH> education not to mention Federal interference.
 JH> 
 MA> 
 MA> Despite using parents as an excuse for the failures of public
 MA> education, I think parents today spend more time with their children
 MA> working on higher volumes of homework than virtually any other
 
 Yet with all that homework, test scores continue to plummet. Theory?
 Mine is that the vast amount of homework is merely "makework". Teachers 
 have to spend a large amount of their time dealing with students who
 have learned apathy from their parents. 
 
 MA> generation of parents ever has.  In the fifties and early sixties my
 MA> parents rarely became involved in my homework, but because educators
 
 My parents in the 70's  and 80's were completely uninvolved with my
 education. Fortunately, I was self-motivated. My sister however was not
 self-motivated and with the same level of uninvolvement she failed,
 dropped out for a year and carried a dismal GPA not to mention the fact
 that way  before this her teachers wanted her on Ritalin and had pidgeon-
 holed her as ADHD, which was NEVER proven. My point is that it is people
 like you and I, who are self-motivated, who can succeed regardless of
 parental involvement. However, we are in a minority. Children who are like 
 my sister _need_ parental involvement to succeed. 
 
 MA> and the public have been immersed with propaganda about prental
 MA> involvement, I now spend 2-3 hours a night working with my kids.
 MA> I am, in fact, right now at my store helping a 10 year old do a
 MA> research project on comparative processor speeds and a 11 years old
 MA> research data on the Ku Klux Klan.
 MA> Projects of this scale were not a part of my own education
 MA> at that age, but today we are pushing the envelope forward without
 MA> accomplishing the fundamentals first.  
     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 I do not argue with this at  all. But are you sure that this is not merely
 "makework" to keep above average students occupied while the teacher has to 
 deal with students whose parents don't care?
 MA> The failure, as I see it, lies in the system, not int he
 MA> individuals involved be those individuals teachers, parents, or the
 MA> children themselves.  Government operated scholls simply fail to do
 MA> the necessary job.
  
 That I don't disagree with either.
 
 MA> The answer, however, does not lie in ending access for all
 MA> children to education, ...
 
 Okay, I'm not saying to shut the doors, I'm saying let's stop _forcing_
 children  into school. That should be the parent's responsibility.
 If the parents don't want to send their kids to school let them find
 their own babysitters.
 MA> but in where we place the responsibility to
 MA> educate and in who we delegate the responsibility to make appropiate
 MA> educational decisions.  
 
 Have you delegated the responsibilty of raising your children to the
 government or does the government claim the responsibilty as it's own?
 As things appear from my position, the government (federal _and_ local)
 has claimed the right to raise our children. Unfortunately, too many
 people just go along with this idea. We should be demanding that as parents
 have the responsibilty to put  food in their childrens' stomachs, they 
 should also be held accountable for  placing books in their childrens' 
 hands. Right now, there are parents who don't care what their children are
 doing just as long as they are not at home inconveniencing the parents.
 These are the very children who do nothing but cause problems for teachers.
 It should not be the teacher's responsibility to raise other peoples'
 little barbarians (for lack of a more descriptive word). The more people
 cast off their little "hassles" onto the government "babysitter", the more
 we as a nation lose the right to "train up our [own] children in the way 
they 
 should go". I just don't see how compulsory education can walk hand in with 
 a free society.
 MA> If we remove government from education and
 MA> restore parental choice in education, competition and a free market
 MA> will resolve the problems that are resolvable. 
  
 Okay, this I agree with. The only point that I'd like to bring up (okay, I'm
 actually pounding it into the ground:)) is that
 according to some folks, the literacy level of our nation began to plummet
 with the spread of compulsory education laws. When education becomes a rarer
 commodity, then it will be greatly desired. Our country's literacy rate was
 about 97% in 1880. This included all minorities. 
 Let me make a disclaimer here: I have not done this research myself so it
 may be inaccurate. Also while the  first compulsory education laws were in
 effect as early as the late 1600's, they were not widespread until the 
 early 1900's when the child-labor laws were enacted.
 I think our only real area of disagreement is in the idea of "compulsory" 
 education. I feel that compulsory education has created nothing more than
 a government babysitter. I do feel that the voucher system is completely 
 viable and should be pursued.
 Jean Halverson
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