Why not end compulsory education?

[Decus]

"Unfortunately, in this system, teachers rarely receive meaningful support or engagement from parents and occasionally face retaliation when they attempt to hold a child accountable for bad behavior or poor academic performance."

http://www.senatesite.com/home/compulsory-education/

A reader's comment to the article:

"As a recovering public school teacher, I can’t tell you how enthusiastically I endorse this proposal! Any honest teacher will have to admit that the learning of the entire class suffers from the distractions caused by the few students that don’t give a damn about their education and don’t want to be there.

As teachers, we can’t kick them out because the school needs the money, so, everyone is unhappy, the student who hates school, the teacher who has to try to control them, and the other students who have to wait for the teacher to deal with the disruptions. Everyone would be better off if those who hate being in school were allowed to leave and go out into the real world and realize they NEED education.

Compulsion kills incentive. The old Soviet Union’s economy PROVED that. Why do we think it will work in education?!"

Seems reasonable enough. Why not give it a try?

 

[TheOldSchool]

Or redefine what types of education will be compulsory. Ex: A child must be enrolled in either a formal school, a trade school, an apprenticeship, approved home curriculum, etc.

Not everyone learns the same way. The system we have now doesn't fit everybody.

 

[Decus]

I agree. As reasonable as it seems, this kind of "choice" doesn't stand much of a chance of being implemented. Too many vested interests and no real concern for the students.

 

[squeeze berry]

Or redefine what types of education will be compulsory. Ex: A child must be enrolled in either a formal school, a trade school, an apprenticeship, approved home curriculum, etc.

Not everyone learns the same way. The system we have now doesn't fit everybody.

exactly

not everyone can or should go to college.

Our president touts university and bemoans the loss of manufacturing jobs at the same time.

Well, we still need machinists, cabinet makers, carpenters, plumbers etc.

no wonder all those jobs are going overseas when we don't have workers here that are trained .

Why not use the taxpayers dough to compete against the global economy?

 

[whitehall]

Actually an unintended consequence of the gigantic federal education bureaucracy was to end education as we know it. Even if the average kid with an average I.Q. wanted to learn all he gets is pablum instead of history, condoms on cucumbers instead of science and a pass on math.

 

[dilloduck]

We need babysitters.

 

[jwoodie]

16 year olds can already drop out of high school. Do you want to extend this option to kindergartners? Improvement of the current situation, especially for Black families, requires a three-pronged approach: Changing attitudes at home, reenforcing values at school and denigrating destructive music and other forms of pop culture.

 

[squeeze berry]

16 year olds can already drop out of high school. Do you want to extend this option to kindergartners? Improvement of the current situation, especially for Black families, requires a three-pronged approach: Changing attitudes at home, reenforcing values at school and denigrating destructive music and other forms of pop culture.

I think that changed a while back that students need to be 18 in almost every state

 

[rdean]

Then we can all be Jethro and Ellie Mae.

 

[martybegan]

16 year olds can already drop out of high school. Do you want to extend this option to kindergartners? Improvement of the current situation, especially for Black families, requires a three-pronged approach: Changing attitudes at home, reenforcing values at school and denigrating destructive music and other forms of pop culture.

8 years of mandatory basic education. After that you have a choice of an academic track to get you to college, or a technical/trade track to prepare you to hit the workforce at 16 with an apprenticeship, and 18 as a full time worker.

 

[Crackerjaxon]

Or redefine what types of education will be compulsory. Ex: A child must be enrolled in either a formal school, a trade school, an apprenticeship, approved home curriculum, etc.

Not everyone learns the same way. The system we have now doesn't fit everybody.

That's still compulsory education, isn't it? Why don't we make it compulsory to have a net annual income over $100,000.00?


Dorothy Parker was right. You can take a whore to culture but you can't make her think.

 

[Crackerjaxon]

Then we can all be Jethro and Ellie Mae.

Hey, that's Appalachian-American to you, asshole.

 

[BobPlumb]

16 year olds can already drop out of high school. Do you want to extend this option to kindergartners? Improvement of the current situation, especially for Black families, requires a three-pronged approach: Changing attitudes at home, reenforcing values at school and denigrating destructive music and other forms of pop culture.

I think that changed a while back that students need to be 18 in almost every state

In SC it is 17.

 

[Pogo]

I vote Aye. Nothing kills interest or productivity like making something mandatory.

 

[Esmeralda]

I disagree with the proposal in the article. It is a simplistic answer to a complex problem. First, if education were not compulsory, we, in the US would have far more people than we now have who are poorly educated or uneducated and unable to be productive members of society. I fully understand the comments of the teacher in the thread who says that if the students in class who didn't care about getting an education weren't there, it would be much better for everyone else. However, not making education compulsory would not solve that problem. Though the State may not require a child to go to school, his or her parents may very well do so, thus you are still going to have students in your class who don't see the value of being there. You are still going to have to deal with motivating unmotivated students. And even though parents may be forcing their children to attend school, that doesn't mean you are going to have involved parents who take part in their child's education and work productively with the teachers and school administrators.

There are many ways to solve the problems in American education, but making it optional is one of the worst ideas possible, unless you want to have a nation with even more unemployable, uneducated people.

One thing that needs to happen is that careers in education need to be more attractive to the best and most effective teachers. At present, administrators make 2, 3, and even 4 times what teachers make. Instead of such inflated salaries for administrators, higher salaries for teachers are needed to attract higher level people.

Another thing that is needed is compulsory parent involvement in the child's education. Many years ago, I was a au pair in Germany for a year. The parent wanted the child to have social experiences with other children, so she sent her to day care a few times a week, half days. In order for the child to be accepted in the day care program, the parent had to volunteer a certain number of hours per week as a teaching assistant in the school in their child's class. I think such a requirement should be made of parents in regards to their children's schooling: parents should be required to spend a certain number of hours per week or month working with the teachers in their child's classes. Their employers should be compelled to give them the time off, and the parents (and employers) should be fined if they don't comply. One of the biggest problems in American education is lack of parent involvement in the child's education, and a huge lack of understanding of what the school environment is like as well as nearly total ignorance about the challenges teachers and administrators face on a daily basis.

Another thing I think is very important is that there are students who are academically inclined and others for whom it is better to direct toward non-academic endeavors. People can be educated and literate without studying Shakespeare, for example. Not everyone should be preparing for higher education, yet everyone should receive a basic education. Tracking is something American schools don't want to do because of what amounts to political correctness, but it is the most logical and reasonable way to approach an obvious problem: there are those of us who are academic and those of us who are not, and education should address both of those types of students.

Education in America has a lot of problems, and they are not being adequately addressed, that's clear.

 

[Politico]

Seeing as everyone is already dumb as a box of rocks they need all the education they can get.

 

[Agit8r]

"Though the state was to derive no advantage from the instruction of the inferior ranks of people, it would still deserve its attention that they should not be altogether uninstructed. The state, however, derives no inconsiderable advantage from their instruction. The more they are instructed the less liable they are to the delusions of enthusiasm and superstition, which, among ignorant nations, frequently occasion the most dreadful disorders. An instructed and intelligent people, besides, are always more decent and orderly than an ignorant and stupid one... They are more disposed to examine, and more capable of seeing through, the interested complaints of faction and sedition, and they are, upon that account, less apt to be misled into any wanton or unnecessary opposition to the measures of government"
-- Adam Smith; from 'Wealth of Nations'

 

[BobPlumb]

For high school, I think kids that lack motivation to do well in the class room should have alternatives -- like ditch digging.

 

[DGS49]

Compulsory education is more than justified by the fact that basic literacy and arithmetic competence are required to function in society.

If we allow people to remain totally ignorant, who will ever vote Republican?

 

[BobPlumb]

Compulsory education is more than justified by the fact that basic literacy and arithmetic competence are required to function in society.

If we allow people to remain totally ignorant, who will ever vote Republican?

Maybe that question should be asked of the people of Detroit.