The Myth of Public Schools
American taxpayers have been hoodwinked by the whole idea of “public schools.” No other institutions get away with such bad behavior on the part of some employees who staff them. We’ve been putting more and more money into the system for decades without reaping more returns for the nation’s children. Just this week, the national 2019 results for 12th grade student achievement were released, showing an average score of 37 percent reading proficiency and 24 percent math proficiency. These numbers are appalling but unlikely to improve as long as public teachers unions continue to behave like the nation’s most lucrative and powerful racketeering ring.
They get away with it in part because of the terms we’ve all been trained to use when speaking about them. Political language is often used to preempt political debates in this way. A case study would be the way the words “private” and “public” are used in political discussions. We speak of a private and a public sector; private and public land; and, of course, private and public schools. These terms stop us from thinking clearly.
The word “private” smacks of a desire to shield something from other people. It describes things that concern self rather than society and it’s almost always used in a defensive way. When we lift a book off a friend’s shelf and hear them shout, “That’s private!” we know we’ve been told to retreat from an unwanted advance into guarded territory. It’s a word used by individuals to make claims on their own behalf against the claims of others. For this reason, it’s at a distinct disadvantage in a democratic society.
The word “public” fares much better in majoritarian politics. It describes things that concern everyone rather than things that pertain to specific individuals. At a time when loneliness and social isolation are rampant, it conjures up associations with community, solidarity, and collective effort.
Neither of these terms are fit for the purposes they serve in political discourse, but the common use of “public” is the more pernicious one. By defining a given interest or industry as “public,” we give the impression that it benefits everyone in society instead of just a few individuals. This creates a blind spot in our discourse. It prevents us from recognizing the fact that the people who staff “public” institutions or those who sell their political prescriptions as salves to be applied in “the public interest” are just as nakedly self-interested as everybody else.
The saddest and most salient example of “public” institutions that are nothing of the sort in the United States is our “public” education system. These schools are advertised to taxpayers as institutions that serve every child in the nation. In reality, they serve the interests of no one other than the small group of Americans who work in these schools as teachers and administrators. This should not surprise us. We expect workers in the “private” sector to pursue their own financial gain. When “private” sector unions go on strike, they do so not for any altruistic reason but in pursuit of higher wages and better working conditions, and they do so unapologetically. But “public” sector unions operate within a different rhetorical framework that puts them at a distinct PR advantage when compared with their “private” sector counterparts. Since the teachers unions can shield their own avarice with claims of “public service” to children, they can manipulate the actual public into thinking that more money, job security, or political power for themselves is in everyone’s interest instead of their own. They can claim that the hopes and dreams of America’s children are somehow mystically present in their paychecks and their extended holidays as if the funds in each of their bank accounts amount to some sort of progressive eucharist of which the entire nation partakes. But a look at graduation rates, test scores, and graduate employability calls this into question.
We’ve seen a ramping-up of their special pleading during the pandemic as union leaders have identified the crisis as an opportune moment to blackmail students and parents for more concessions. The mafia-style protection racket proceeds apace even as I write this. Just this week, the Fairfax Education Association, a union that represents teachers in northern Virginia, announced its refusal to return to in-person schooling until August 2021 at the earliest. This is in spite of the fact that K-12 schools across the nation that have reopened have managed to avoid coronavirus surges so far.
In typical fashion, the teachers unions are arguing that their actions are meant to protect the health of both teachers and students. All this proves is that they either don’t know or don’t care about the extremely concerning negative effects that long-term distance learning is having on the neurology of children. My colleague Madeleine Kearns recently conducted an interview with the child psychiatrist Allan M. Josephson for National Reviewin which Dr Josephson details the disruption to childhood brain development that the policy of the teachers unions could bring about. Face-to-face interaction with other kids is critical if children are to develop the interpersonal problem-solving skills that will be required of them as adults. Clearly, no child psychiatrist was consulted when the Fairfax Education Association was putting together its list of demands or, if one was, he or she was summarily ignored.
It disgusts me 100% on how the school systems have handled our children, their Rights, the Parents Rights. What they have sone is completely unconstitutional. Period. Read the US Constitution and your STATE Constitution. Pathetic. Masking our children thru school and sports. I KNOW our children WILL have an affect adversely by all of this. A Country I am disgusted in today. These children are being let down by many.
school vouchers;market prevails
Public Education’s failures are purposely being concealed and it’s one of the Swamp’s best kept secrets.
Many people of today’s teachers and especially the administrators have failed our students by not making them prepared to deal with the real world or how to be successful adults either socially or intellectually.
Instead they learn how to feel, feed resentments, make judgements without using discernment and to make excuses instead of accepting responsibility & learning from their mistakes.
Anyone with school age children in this day and age that sends their children to a public school is doing the child, the family and all of the nation a terrible disservice. They should know how the public school system is nothing but a failure and or learn soon or else their child will suffer the consequences of such.
It is so easy and economical today to give your child a much better education by home schooling and home schooling has been proven to be 1,000 times better than public education. Now for those of you that say I cannot afford home schooling, or I am not qualified to do it, the question is can you afford not to home school them, and if your not qualified there is a cheap and easy solution. That solution is to get together in your neighborhood and community, hire a retired older teacher who would probably welcome the oppertunity to not only be busy rather than sitting around and do the job quite reasonable , They might also feel an obligation to do the job, as they also know how disgusting the alternative is for children today and going to the public school system. For those of you that think the public school system did ok by my child, I ask you to go on line and give your child a pop quiz of a test that was given to 6th graders in 1918 and see if they can pass it, now it must be a pop quiz as it was for the children that took the test then, Now when you learn that 90% of the teachers in the public school system today were given this same test in the past and present failed it. Wake up people if you truly wish the best for your child or children, if you truly love them and the nation as a whole then again I ask the question, can you afford not to leave the public system and do better? Oh by the way as proof that the public school system failed for decades, my writing, grammar, spelling and punctuation in this should enough as I was a victim of public schooling.
Thank god my parents sacrificed for me and my sisters, we all got a private church school education. I only did 2 years of public school, my last 2 years, and there is where I learned how to drink and swear, and smoke pot! Amazing, I got spanked in private school also. And I deserved it every time.
In my opinion, where public schools have failed students is in being one sided. By that I mean many of the lessons taught are from the liberal point of view. I am a retired teacher and I have seen it first hand.
School districts usually send out at the beginning of each school year a memo on teaching or discussing controversial subjects in classes. This is one thing the district I taught in did. The memo basically states that if a controversial subject is discussed or taught, the teacher is to present ALL sides equally AND fairly. The teacher is not to give their opinion unless they are asked, but they are to do it without judgement.
There were teachers in the district I taught in who did NOT follow this. The blatantly gave their opinion on what they believed and/or bad mouthed the other side. Some did not even present the other side. Many students were afraid to say anything as they feared it would effect their grade
In my opinion, this is one reason this country has people who now hate this country and all it stands for.
Parents, talk to your kids. Ask them what they are learning about. Ask them if there is any controversial things being discussed in their classes. If you are getting responses that go against your values and beliefs, let the schools principal know. Let school board members know. Better yet talk to your students’ teacher and let them know you are aware of what they are doing
There are FREE and LEGAL options in every state. Don’t tell me states won’t allow students in other schools. Charter schools are legal in every state. They are not available in every city. Online public schools, not your local public schools with online classes. Connection Academy and K12 are available and free in every state.
These teachers unions are acting like they will decide when where and how to teach our children! The have adopted ‘core curriculum’ a trash education program! The have adopted ‘critical race theory’ training, which teaches our kids to hate America and destroys the esteem of white children! And they have remove History from school and instead teach hatred of our country to our kids because “America is RACIST!” BS! And now they are holding ‘schools’ hostage?
NO MORE! I firmly believe that these unions have been infiltrated with UN/communist “operatives” who LIE to our kids, BRAINWAH our kids and use their ‘agenda’ to destroy families and meighborhoods!
DEMAND THE ADOPTION OF “THE 1776 COMMISSION” BY EVERY PUBLIC SCHOOL IN AMERICA!
And if these COMMUNIST UNIONS don’t like it? Well, home schooling is better for your kids anyway! And since these sick POSs calling themselves ‘teachers’ instead of “INDOCTRINATORS” don’t like it? DEFUND THEM AND FIRE THEM!
I’ve always had problems with the DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION when my kids were in school! If the Dept of Education doesn’t like it? FIRE THEM TOO! Have every member of the DOE investigated for corruption and sedition! THAT’S WHERE IS BS COMES FROM! The Deep State control of our education system by “traitors” pretending to be Americans!
Look at CHINA JOE BIDEN and tell me I’m wrong! TRUMP2020!
I have read so many comments and WOW, spot on. These children have been conditioned AND a very good reason for the state we are in today as a Country. It scares the heck out of me. I have listened and seen many of my nieces/nephews and some days, I CANNOT BELIEVE WHAT I AM HEARING OR SEEING. NOTHING but disrespect, shameful, mouthy. Makes me sick to my stomach. I DO NOT want this happening to our granddaughters. This needs to stop. I pray for ALL these children especially the position THEY have been put in. PARENTS STAND UP!!!!!!
Of course, the teachers union wants to wait until August 2021 to have in-person schooling. I suppose they want to be paid their salary while this is going on, too. Did they get paid for all the months that the children weren’t in school? I’ll bet they did. I have heard students say that the online classes are a mess. The teachers keep changing the servers. They should have had the online class all figured out while the students weren’t in school. What were the teachers doing? The students don’t’ know math, grammar, or history. But, they probably know that they can choose their gender. Schools were much better before the Federal government started giving schools money and overseeing them. Schools should be under the supervision of the city or county. They were much better then.
I just finished reading the above comments which are all really good. Recently, I read somewhere online that some teachers didn’t want the parents interfering with what they are teaching. That should tell us lots right there. They are brain washing the children. They should be teaching. I read a few months ago about a teacher that was keeping a little boy after school to brain wash him into thinking he was a girl. That teacher should be fired and never allowed to teach again. I’m not saying there aren’t dedicated teachers that are doing a great job because there are, but the government shouldn’t be telling the teachers what to teach and how to do it. Things like teaching to the test so the school will get more money if the class does well on the test shouldn’t be happening.
Sadly, it’s time to dismantle the education system and start over. It’s time to focus on the “three R’s” again rather than indoctrinating our kids on the political and sexual agendas the teachers are pushing. It’s time for tenure to go away and teachers to be held accountable for getting their students to achieve the prescribed level of learning required at each grade level. It’s time to stop dumbing down the curriculum and raising expectations – we will be pleasantly surprised when students achieve those expectations as they are capable of it. It’s time to stop giving participation awards and going back to the time when healthy competition made people push harder to try to reach certain goals. It’s time to go backwards – to fire all of the “activist” teachers who over-step their boundaries by pushing their personal ideologies on their classrooms. It’s time to realize that there is real merit in learning a skill and that going to a university right now isn’t necessarily the best path for a lot of people. If a young person doesn’t know which field they want to specialize in, it’s pretty much a waste of money. In other words, it’s time to start using common sense again.
Trump and Betsy DeVos (Secty. Of Education) are both ardent ‘school choice’ supporters. The Public Education System(PES), including teachers and administrators, is 100% paid by taxpayer, half from liberals and half from conservatives. However, the PES has been in the Dems pockets for decades. PES donates only to Dem candidates and policies; in return, Dems push higher salaries and funding. Each child gets from $10,000-$20,000 from the Dept of Education per year based on location. School Vouchers, School Choice, private/charter/religious school enrollment are all on the table if Trump wins. That $10,000 -$20,000 is YOURS to spend for your child. Parents of all races and incomes want SCHOOL CHOICE/VOUCHERS. Why should only the rich get a decent education? No need to home school. Once this system is fully in place, 2021 with Trump, we can break the back of the PES monopoly for good. You know who’s against this? Biden, Harris, the Dems, the PES, teachers and administrators. Tough! They’ve been riding the ‘summers off’ gravy train for too long. Just to throw this in: Planned Parenthood (PP) is paid by the PES (your money) to prepare sex education studies for every grade from kindergarten up.
For 10 year old girls: ‘how to get an abortion without your parents knowing about it’. And of course, the PES (your money again)also contracts with LGBT radicals for ‘gender’ lessons, alternative lifestyles and practices, and even with CAIR.
Vote Trump and SAVE your children.
That’s ok – hurt them by proceeding with adjustments in taxes. In northern Ohio the useless teachers union stated the same thing. We only want to school ur kids 1 maybe 2 days a week. The rest will be online. Parents got together and demanded children go back to school immediately or the counties immediately adjust payroll taxes to adjust a decrease in taxpayers expense due to kids not going to school. Do u realize that a large part of ur taxes is to fund the public schools with new schools and computers everywhere. Let me tell u things changed immediately. Kids don’t go to school 5 days a week but they definitely go more than one day. We the people need to hurt these teachers and administrators where it hurts in their wallets!