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Also, go to John Taylor Gatto's website. He is a three-time New York City Teacher of the Year who decided to look at how our schools work as if they were designed to do as poorly as they do, instead of trying to find out what was wrong. He discoved much of what was listed above.

John Taylor Gatto's book The Underground History of American Education explains a lot of the problems with the American educational system.

It began, as nearly as I can figure, around 1850 or so. Read about it

A better explanation

It was the goal of some rather influential people of the 19th century. The book at that URL explains it from the perspective of a retired public schoolteacher, and I urge all of you to at least read the intro and skim a few chapters.

That was quite likely his point, but your reply misses mine. My point is that putting out useful information on the web is now a collaborative process made possible by technologies like Wikis. All you are suggesting is that the public may take on the role of free rider (and somehow wants to do that); I'm suggesting it is becoming the netizens civic reponsbility to give back -- and in this case, correct information they think it factually in error. Just like a free country doesn't stay that way unless everyone use their freedom to preserve it, so too we won't have free information sources if everyone takes the attitude of let someone else fix it. The original poster obviously cares enough about Puerto Rico's history to complain here -- it wouldn't take that much more effort to just fix the problem as they see it. Frankly, drawing upon typical conventionally produced texbook-style information sources (see _Lies My Teacher Told Me_), "Emily's fifth grade report on Puerto Rico" is probably already a bunch of malarky (ignoring for example aspects of imperialism and probably a puff piece, say, on how great it is the US government supposedly looks out for the best interests of people in the Carribean and has their best interests at heart). What is possible now through the internet provides a chance to make this better. And in any case, isn't it more important Emily learn about Wikis and the importance of multiple perspectives and collaboration than being taught to just simply sit down, shut up, do what she is told, and regurgitate the party line?

Home schooling is no better either. What you get there are socially inept children who are coddled and shielded from the real world.

Unfortunately, our (specifically, American) society has developed the idea that a diploma is an entitlement rather than a reflection of an earned education.

Then, read James Lowen's _Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your High School History Texbook Got Wrong_ to see how your mind has unknowingly been filled with nationalist and consumer crap (despite your technical proclivities). Also check out Howard Zinn. Learn to live simply and frugally so you have more options:

If you have started doing all that, by now you are primed to begin to question what education really means.

And further, to even question why people need to work and what it should mean to do useful things.

You'll have time to read great minds like Bertrand Russel and Freeman Dyson.

Then you can accept you are still stuck in a stupid system.

But you'll be positioned to make the best of it and yet still see how the world can be a made better place to for the bulk of humanity and other creatures.

Always remember in your darker hours to at least ask yourself the question, "Can life be made worth living?" And in your brighter hours, remember to ask yourself if you are playing a finite (to win) game or an infinite (to play) game?

And, finally, for continual inspiration, read _Voyage From Yesteryear_ by James P. Hogan.

Now go out and take some educated risks to try to make life worth living -- despite your future happiness possibilities already almost being ruined by being convinced you that you are "bright" just because you know some technical things (same thing almost happened to me).

The historical reality is that the US was better educated before the advent of mass government schooling (circa 1915). The architects of our present system explicitly said they wanted to produce docile workers and predictable consumers, not independent men and women. It has been well documented: Underground History of American Education.

For example, here's a quote from Woodrow Wilson about the aims of public education:

"We want one class to have a liberal education. We want another class, a very much larger class of necessity, to forgo the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks."

It's simply absurd to suggest that your typical educator or politician blindly believes that computers are the solution to America's education woes.

You discount the real reason for public school: Dumbing down the general populous to make obedient factory workers and soldiers.

Don't take my word for it, read the works of those people who founded the forced public schools.

I can whole heartedly recommend the works of New York State Teacher of the Year John Taylor Gatto.

The public school system in America is working perfect for what it was designed to do.

Bob-

>Do it anyway. He'll get a better education that way.

I was going to say you were right, but then I realized that you're wrong. The kid won't get a better education, he'll get an education! Schools are about schooling, and education is not included.

There are very few good teachers, but those few are responsible for all the education which happens in the schools. For a good view of what schooling is all about, and how it differs from education, see John Taylor Gatto's essay, The Six-Lesson School Teacher.

It seems to me that schools don't do a very good job of teaching critical thinking.

I certainly agree that math is critical for CS. But I disagree with the idea of not taking advanced math (like Calculus) in high school.

Quite frankly, the primary and secondary education systems (at least in the US) are horribly broken. There's nothing about calculus that is too hard for high school students - even average ones. But they've been taught math so poorly since the very beginning that they're hopelessly behind.

Teach yourself (and teach your own children), school will not do it for you. Just think of all those years you wasted learning to multiply over and over again when you could have been progressing.

The idea that young minds (say, fifth graders) are incapable of grasping more advanced math is a fallacy. Schools teach badly, then students underperform, then schools say "See, the curriculum is too hard - we need to slow down!" Wash, rinse, and recurse, and you get the abysmal state of education today.

Anyone who wants to understand how the American education system got broken needs to read this.

Nice link, thanks. I'm digging the dumbness section in the prologue.

It is doing the job it was designed to do.

http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm

For about 130 years, begining with the publication of Kingston's Peter the Whaler, books for guys (15-34ish) made up 25% of the publishing industry's revenues. Tastes changed with the times, so the focus shifted from Nautical works to Dime Novels to Pulp Fiction, Westerns and SciFi.

Somewhere, starting in the '70s, this market was just flat-out abandoned, with the exception of SciFi. The focus became books for girls, as boys were too busy with sports/TV/arcades/cars/drugs to merit the publication of quality content (I mean come on, in the '30s guys were playing stickball, leaving school to work at 14 'cause of the Depression, listening to the radio, and still had time for Doc Savage).

You'll have to look long and hard to find new fiction that is intended for guys without being pandering.

Outside of sports (only reason I have cable), kinda expect TV to go the same way. Only difference being, as folks like John Taylor Gatto point out, in schools you're conditioned to watch TV, whereas literacy is discouraged, so it might take a little longer, but the dropoff in numbers is hardly surprising.

Right. "Independent thinking" is encouraged in the classroom. Maybe you went to a private school, or you had one or two teachers that gave a damn, but for the most part, K-12's job is to keep you educated enough to buy into whatever marketing is thrown your way (be it commercial, political, whatever) and steer you clear of independent thinking. The job of public schools is to keep you in the "awkward" (child-like in maturity and responsibility, but in that perfect phase where the majority of people's one desire is to fit in) phase as long as possible. Doing this makes you the most susceptible to much of the marketing done today. "Buy this car and you'll fit in!", "Buy this T shirt that costs 30 bucks because a designer name is on it and you'll fit in!", and many others come to mind. Very little has to deal with independent thinking.

But you don't have to take my word for it

While I think in college many people's independent thinking is praised and nurtured, I do not see such practices done in the K-12 (the exceptions are of course the motivated teacher, but unfortunately they seem few and far between).

Hell, intelligence in general is shunned in the public schools in America. My girlfriend (from Sichuan, China) and I were watching TV one night, and she noticed every show about the school years was based mostly on social status. She asked me "Doesn't your academic standing determine how popular you are?"

I think the rigid testing of the Asian culture does have its drawbacks, but at least their culture praises academics at the parental, teacher, and peer social levels(Disclaimer: My girlfriend hasn't been in High School for many years and she did only attend one of many schools in China, but she did insist that this was common across China).

Good eye. Gatto's writing is actually what motivated my post, although I admit to being somewhat facetious. The Underground History of American Education is a more thorough examination than the article from WER on Nathan Myers' site. It is available in its entirety(almost) on his web site.

Furthermore, the student - in investigating parts of computing that are obscure to many - seems to be showing promise and intelligence. To attack the natural curiousity of the student is to stifle his natural inclination to learn and investigate

If you read a little about the history of government schooling, you will see that that is exactly the purpose of having it in the first place.

U.S. Schools were set up to squelch entrepreneurship so that people would work in factories at the start of the Industrial revolution. Seems the big wigs couldn't get enough investment to buy big mass production machinery without some guarantee that small-scale production wouldn't overly interfere.

Just what are we protecting our children from? When do they lose the benefit of that protection? Is shielding them from things that they're are GOING to be exposed to for the rest of their lives really protecting them at all?

In short, yes.

You have the air of a teenager who does not spend much time with children. The fact is that a six year old is not equipped to understand sex. With sufficient "education" they could probably pass a sex-ed exam, but that's "book learning"; they still don't understand it. Among other things, they are literally not physically equipped to understand what "sex drive" or "horny" really means.

You have forgotten this because you are now old enough to understand, but in your lack of empathy you forget that everyone is not like you, especially children.

The problem is that what a child does not truly understand will be filled in with something, and the odds of them filling it in correctly are effectively zero. Surely you've seen one of those humor postings that contains 20 or 30 "explanations" from children about how the world works, all very funny, all very wrong. Now imagine that with sex, where they don't have the first clue what it is.

While one does not necessarily need to go to extremes to shield a child (because mercifully they are rather uncurious about stuff they have no inkling even exists; most 5 or 6 year olds should be happy with the explanations that babies require a mommy and a daddy, and probe for only limited details beyond that), it is still better to shield them from stuff that they can not and will not understand, until they have a framework for handling it.

For a more neutral example, look at the number of Slashdot-type people who believe mystical things about Electromagnetism or Quantum Physics or other subjects they totally don't understand. Their ignorance is filled in with garbage.

Furthermore, unlike misunderstanding QM or EM, which is relatively harmless, a misunderstanding of sex has empirically verifiable negative effects on people, ranging from merely awkward moments that should't have been awkward to seriously maladjustments (often caused by early sexual abuse; remember I'm using this as an extreme) requiring years of therapy to address, if it can be addressed at all.

Shielding a child from these things is an attempt to prevent the child from experiencing these negative effects. Any parent who doesn't shield their kid to a large degree is doing their child a serious, potentially life-changing (negatively) misservice.

I'm a big believer that we seriously underestimate our children routinely and are harming them thereby. But this is an exception. Try to teach a third-grader calculus, and they won't get it (with rare exceptions; see Piaget's theories for reasoning on that), but the misunderstandings they will develop won't harm them significantly. That's not true for sex; it has real effects on relationships and understanding their place in the world.

For a humorous demonstration of this, there's a South Park episode where the kids learn about sex; I recommend it to you. It's not as far out as it might seem; the only reason that sort of thing doesn't happen in real life (except for the final silly Mad-Max-style assault bit) is that kids feed back to their parents what they learned, and some of the parents would have noticed sooner the misconceptions they were developing and taken steps to defuse them. Otherwise, the damage done to the children's relationships (and in the real world, it could be worse; it certainly wouldn't be artifically erased at the end of the episode when the Reset Button is pushed) would be real.

Computers are not the problem. People are.

For another look at this, check out John Taylor Gatto, New York State's Teacher of the Year for 1991 (and three time winner of New York City Teacher of the year.

I have to mention Sudbury schools. I first heard about it on /. and it sounds like something you might be interested in.

Also, John Gatto has some good ideas about contemporary schooling and its problems.

This is not frightening at all. It's what's happening. You need to know what's really going on in the public schools these days.

The Art Of Driving

Now come back to the present while I demonstrate that the identical trust placed in ordinary people two hundred years ago still survives where it suits managers of our economy to allow it. Consider the art of driving, which I learned at the age of eleven. Without everybody behind the wheel, our sort of economy would be impossible, so everybody is there, IQ notwithstanding. With less than thirty hours of combined training and experience, a hundred million people are allowed access to vehicular weapons more lethal than pistols or rifles. Turned loose without a teacher, so to speak. Why does our government make such presumptions of competence, placing nearly unqualified trust in drivers, while it maintains such a tight grip on near-monopoly state schooling?

An analogy will illustrate just how radical this trust really is. What if I proposed that we hand three sticks of dynamite and a detonator to anyone who asked for them. All an applicant would need is money to pay for the explosives. You'd have to be an idiot to agree with my plan--at least based on the assumptions you picked up in school about human nature and human competence.

And yet gasoline, a spectacularly mischievous explosive, dangerously unstable and with the intriguing characteristic as an assault weapon that it can flow under locked doors and saturate bulletproof clothing, is available to anyone with a container. Five gallons of gasoline have the destructive power of a stick of dynamite. The average tank holds fifteen gallons, yet no background check is necessary for dispenser or dispensee. As long as gasoline is freely available, gun control is beside the point. Push on. Why do we allow access to a portable substance capable of incinerating houses, torching crowded theaters, or even turning skyscrapers into infernos? We haven't even considered the battering ram aspect of cars--why are novice operators allowed to command a ton of metal capable of hurtling through school crossings at up to two miles a minute? Why do we give the power of life and death this way to everyone?

C'mon, this is obvious:

How long can America keep pumping out students whose test scores are in the cellar for industrial nations and expect to maintain an edge in technology? As it stands, a lot of our brains are already imported from India and China.

I live in CA, which should stand as a dire warning to the rest of the country: They limit their property taxes, their schools go underfunded, and as a result California natives largely end up working to repair the cars and wash the floors of the well-educated from elsewhere.

The US needs to get serious about education, and fast. With the tech boom and the world shinking as it is, this is a really bad time to be stupid.

I hear this stuff all the time, and used to believe it myself on occasion. Its simply not true. The educational system was NEVER intended to make people smart, it was intended to make the intelligent human masses comfortable working in factories doing boring, repetitive work and acquiesing to the demands of leaders. Education as we know it, is a system which originated in fascist germany as a way to school better, more obedient and selfless soldiers.

Make no mistake. Schools are doing EXACTLY what they were designed to do. Think about it. Have you ever gone to a neighboorhood in the US which was constructed in the 19th century? How is it houses were constructed to be not only durable, but beautiful as well? The parks, museums, sculptures... All built long before public schools. Have you ever read civil war letters? The average 15 year old infantryman in the civil war writes far better than 99% of the people who post on slashdot. Could you imagine any book by Charles Dickens being on the bestseller list today? Why are so many schools named after the industrial magnates of yesteryear, like Carnegie, Colgate... Why were so many colleges funded by the industrial elite?

If you really think about it, it just doesn't add up. Schools make you DUMB, this is what they were supposed to do. It makes a people easier to control, and less prone to nasty rebellions. Humans are innately intelligent, it is only warping their minds through years of social conditioning they became mad, lost, and inhuman. Carnegie, JP Morgan, Frick, all of them sat around and thought about how to make free men content to work in their god foresaken factories, and like it. They made it so, and now we are living with that legacy.

The forced educational system must come to an end, it is time for this system of class control to collapse and for the average american to recapture the American dream that was stolen from him by the fascist powers of a century ago. We sit here and rip on the US educational system, even though the educational system is the single largest industry in the United States, both in capital expenditures and employment percentages. How is it people in India and China can do as well as us, even in the midst of an anarchy which can barely pave roads let alone build schools. They are better because they are NOT schooled.

To all who are interested, I highly suggest you read the online version of a book entitled The Underground History of American Education by one John Taylor Gatto. The book gives a well written account of exactly how the free minds of the United States were perverted into the drones we have today. It is rare I read a book that is truly eye opening, but this book will make it all make sense.

I recommend a read through this book, currently partially available online.

It will certainly provide food for thought.

Isn't that the exact problem our educational system is supposed to help us avoid?

The current educational system is specifically designed to ingest impressionable children and excrete pliable, gullible, "citizens."

Our only hope is that the current system of government indoctrination centers either implodes like the USSR did (and for the same reasons!) or is defunded by the people so that our children don't get any more dumbed down than they already have been.

The number one goal of the current "education" system is to promote the religion of Goverment-is-the-solution-to-all-problems.

As my children are required by law to attend school, and by the school to use the library, it is not as if I have the option of keeping my children out of the library.

Why are Americans so embarassingly ignorant of history? Are schools in the United States really that bad?

but we currently live with a system that is designed to protect our liberties.

That statement is fallacious. We live in a system that is designed to limit liberty.
Do some research. Start at http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/

Yet ours is a society that lives in ignorance.

The Makers of Modern Schooling

be gentle, i'm sure that site isn't up to the /. challenge.

Teachers Unions: No merit pay, no efficiency, no competence, just time served.

Funding by Failure: "They're doing well, they don't need any more money."

Funding by Force: A student, no matter how completely unsuited, is required to go because the school system is paid by number of students who are in the building. I was told, for instance, that if I didn't come to school they would put my mother in jail. How's that for motivation?

Massive Overhead: Administration costs continue to endlessly rise, while "test scores" fall, and "not enough teachers" is the hue and cry.

Why are home schooled kids so over-represented in spelling bee's and science fairs? Why is the average home schooled kids standard test scores 35 percentage points higher than average?

To a teacher, with rare exceptions, this is just a job. They get paid anyway. To the parent, this has a *reason*.

Private schools either do a good job, or loose paying customers. Paying customers also means they can GET PHD and guest lecturers, if the parents want them. Private schools, like the ones that Al Gore Jr. as well as most all of the rest of the children of those who make and set policy and budgets for "public schools", consistantly turn out better educated students.

I found a page with an 8th grade final exam from 1895. Read it and imagine having to take the same one yourself at that age. Would you have passed? Could you pass it NOW? Here it is, completed, so you can check yourself.

Want your children taught that creation is fact?
Want to ensure that your children are never taught that creation is fact?
The sword of forced and centrally planned policy cuts all ways, folks. It fails to provide service.

Bob-

This is really nothing new. It seems apparent to me that for the past 100 years, capitalist[1] interests have been intent on capturing and monopolizing the attention of the general public. They don't need an "information society" to get it done, either, though it does make things much easier. As John Taylor Gatto, former NY State Teacher of the Year, said:

The children I teach have almost no curiosity and what they do have is transitory; they cannot concentrate for very long, even on things they choose to do. Can you see a connection between the bells ringing again and again to change classes and this phenomenon of evanescent attention?

-- Out of 168 hours in each week my children sleep 56. That leaves them 112 hours a week out of which to fashion a self.
-- My children watch 55 hours of television a week according to recent reports. That leaves them 57 hours a week in which to grow up.
-- My children attend school 30 hours a week, use about 6 hours getting ready, going and coming home, and spend an average of 7 hours a week in homework -- a total of 45 hours. During that time they are under constant surveillance, have no private time or private space, and are disciplined if they try to assert individuality in the use of time or space. That leaves 12 hours a week out of which to create a unique consciousness. Of course, my kids eat, and that takes some time--not much because they've lost the tradition of family dining, but if we allot 3 hours a week to evening meals we arrive at a net amount of private time for each child of 9 hours.

And we wonder why so many people have "mental illness."

[1] I'm not a raving Communist or anything, I just call 'em how I see 'em. Capitalism by its nature will seek maximum profits. What better way to maximize profits than brainwashing children into buying your product?

Public school is but one alternative today. I have home schooled my kids and know first and the benefits. Luckily today there are some great resources on the net. My first read was John Holt. He has taught from kindergarden to Harvard. He started off trying to change the system from within in the early 60s to advocating homeschooling in the late 60s. I still love the book title _burn the schools, save the children_.

A blistering attack on public schools by the NY Teacher of the Year John Gatto - can be found in his acceptance speech Ouch.

Is home schooling for everyone? No.

But is is an alternative and a great one at that. Read lots.