“Schools teach exactly what they are intended to teach, and they do it well: how to be a good Egyptian and remain in your place in the pyramid.” – Dumbing Us Down
If anything has exposed how unprepared and immobile the public school system is, the coronavirus has. When the virus forced the shutdown of businesses and schools in March 2020, educators were clearly caught off guard. 28 states consisting of nearly half the K-12 student populations, had no mandates for off-site learning. For those who did, 47 percent of public school students did not attend any online classes. These dismal figures are not difficult to believe, since 10 million students, around 14 percent, do not even have access to the internet at home. Unreliable data has also made it impossible to track student attendance. Unfortunately, this antiquated behemoth we call government education currently controls 90 percent of K-12.
Education in America used to function as a laboratory of democracy, where local jurisdictions operated in a manner that was beneficial for their population. Education began at home with parents and families and local supervision. This once participatory control has since yielded to state and federal bureaucrats, with parents increasingly left out. The decision-making of many at the epicenter of learning has now been filtered down to a few elite experts who reside somewhere else.
With the switch to compulsory universal education, we are now running schools as a one-size-fits-all scheme. Schools are structured like factories mass-producing an identical and unoriginal supply of subservient automatons. A virtual conveyor belt carries the naive clump of human potential through a series of disjointed classes. The goal is to manufacture a uniform, passive, and dependent group of followers. Segregated by age, in a controlled environment, as if they all should reach the same stage of development at the same time.
In fact, public school advocates are looking to permanently extend their reach to include not only breakfast, lunch, after-school activities, and now dinner, but to expand K-12 to 0-12. Their current target, the early education sector, from birth to age 8. A 2018 study from Harvard Medical School, however, found dangers in early childhood enrollment. Not all children are the same or at the same level of development, and forced conformity leads to feelings of inadequacy and confusion. Additionally, the misdiagnosis for ADHD that results, and the medication that follows, is detrimental to the mental and physical health of the child.
Education is the wealth of knowledge that one acquires during their lifetime through many venues. The goal of childhood education is to bring children into adulthood prepared to meet their future. Schooling is the formal process of attaining that education. In Bryan Caplan’s “The Case Against Education”, Caplan notes how little the current school curriculum has to do with the modern labor market. Students are not being prepared for life as a working adult, but instead for the next segment of schooling in higher education. Many of these students, however, will opt out of college for trade schools, or employment.
In John Taylor Gatto’s 1992 book, “Dumbing Us Down”, Gatto reports on the current state of schooling under the compulsory system that he believes is working to create a passive, and obedient workforce, through a system that limits competition through government rules and regulations. He believes that America’s children are coming out of this system with 12 years of schooling but little education. He argues for a return to parental control and a system of self-education that is innovative and experimental. To achieve that end, Gatto portends that less school is needed, not more.
Today’s labor market is drastically different than that of previous generations, with a rapid change from the escalation of technology. Successful candidates will need to be independent, and autonomous. With the current brick-and-mortar model growing more antiquated by the day, there is a need for a complete overhaul to an innovative, online, self-directed curriculum, ala individualized learning. To accelerate the makeover, we need to abolish state and federal funding, as the existing quid pro quo of government subsidies is government control. Competing markets can then provide parents with an array of options best suited to meet their diverse needs. The Internet is already supplying low-cost customized learning opportunities. For those families still in need of financial assistance, government or private donations will continue to offer help.
Successful people are competent, individualistic, and self-reliant. The current universal compulsory government-run education system cannot produce this kind of worker. Perhaps the gross deficiencies exposed by the coronavirus will serve as a catalyst for change.
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