Public School is a Cultural Abomination

Martin,
Well written blog. I think I go back and forth on this issue and I'm not sure what the answer is. I think some of the issues that you sight cannot be blamed on the school system alone. It really comes down to effective and intrusive parenting. But not all parent's will hold their kids accountable, like you said, which I totally agree with. Thus the effect is a system with both kinds of kids, disciplined and held to account on the one hand and the unruly kids with little consequences from Mom and Dad for their actions on the other. Honestly, I'm not a very big fan of home schooling. I feel that most parent's who take it on are not qualified to continue their child's education beyond a certain level resulting in their sudden enrollment in another kind of school (public or otherwise) and that's when the child may start to experience socialization issues from not being amongst groups during some of it's developmental years. However, I have seen it be successful in the past as well. I am a big fan of private schools, the right ones anyway. I've already discussed this with Steph and if I have to stay here past my tour at JIOC we're likely going to send Maddie to a private school, we're dropping approx 5500 a year on day care as of now, no issues dropping it on a private school either (already checked out some). But we need to play it by ear. Summarily, I don't know what the answer is to this issue, but I don't believe that you should take a MICRO problem (the inadequacies of the Hawaii Public School System) and apply it as endemic of a more MACRO system (the public school system as whole in the U.S.). I think your suppositions may be true with the Hawaii school system, I'm definitely not impressed with it, but there's no empirical study that I've seen that your findings would apply to MOST school systems and it sounds as if you're relying on very little evidence (ie your friend's complaints about her job and your own experience.) Interesting read though. Tell A and the little one I said hi.
V/R,
Dave

Martin,
Well written blog. I think I go back and forth on this issue and I'm not sure what the answer is. I think some of the issues that you sight cannot be blamed on the school system alone. It really comes down to effective and intrusive parenting. But not all parent's will hold their kids accountable, like you said, which I totally agree with. Thus the effect is a system with both kinds of kids, disciplined and held to account on the one hand and the unruly kids with little consequences from Mom and Dad for their actions on the other. Honestly, I'm not a very big fan of home schooling. I feel that most parent's who take it on are not qualified to continue their child's education beyond a certain level resulting in their sudden enrollment in another kind of school (public or otherwise) and that's when the child may start to experience socialization issues from not being amongst groups during some of it's developmental years. However, I have seen it be successful in the past as well. I am a big fan of private schools, the right ones anyway. I've already discussed this with Steph and if I have to stay here past my tour at JIOC we're likely going to send Maddie to a private school, we're dropping approx 5500 a year on day care as of now, no issues dropping it on a private school either (already checked out some). But we need to play it by ear. Summarily, I don't know what the answer is to this issue, but I don't believe that you should take a MICRO problem (the inadequacies of the Hawaii Public School System) and apply it as endemic of a more MACRO system (the public school system as whole in the U.S.). I think your suppositions may be true with the Hawaii school system, I'm definitely not impressed with it, but there's no empirical study that I've seen that your findings would apply to MOST school systems and it sounds as if you're relying on very little evidence (ie your friend's complaints about her job and your own experience.) Interesting read though. Tell A and the little one I said hi.
V/R,
Dave