You are blind to it, like most of the American sheeple.

It's indoctrination.

Yes to all of the above - at different times in 20th and 21st century America.

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

Actually, calling public schools "indoctrination centers" isn't as far out as you may think.

• Every day students must stand up, place their hands over their hearts and blindly recite a pledge to a piece of cloth that longer represents what it once did - liberty for all.

• Students move from class to class at the sound of a bell, the same way that workers take breaks or end their work day at the sound of a bell.

• Students must follow rules, which is understandable, yet many of them seem designed merely to enforce blind compliance with authority, no matter how stupid the rule. A good example of this was when the son of a friend got in trouble at school for opening his locker one morning 5 minutes before the rules said he could.

The public school system in American was designed on the assembly line model to indoctrinate future workers/passive citizens who will do as they are told without question.

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Walter Mondale: "George Bush doesn't have the manhood to apologize." George Bush: "Well, on the manhood thing, I'll put mine up against his any time."

I just don't believe that. I know lots of teachers and they are not trying to create perfect little Americans. They are trying to help children learn and grow into strong healthy educated adults.

I am all for getting rid of the pledge, I also know that I was only forced to say it when I lived in right wing areas of this nation.

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Walt Whitman
"I say that democracy can never prove itself beyond cavil, until it founds and luxuriantly grows its own forms of art, poems, schools, theology, displacing all that exists, or that has been produced anywhere in the past, under opposite influences."

I still remember the day that I realized the pledge actually had words. before that it was a string of syllables we had to mumble every morning just before we said the Lord's prayer. yes - I am ooold. I recall prayer in schools - guess what - there were still problems back then, too.

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Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.
Ernest Benn

No, that really is the case quite often. Home schooled children are "taught" by parents. In many cases, they don't even have to have any actual knowledge. You are taking your personal experience and projecting it onto the many people who aren't you. Poor reasoning.

I keep seeing your jaw flapping about how no one knows, yet source after source agrees with me. Not looking too good for you chum, especially when your own "source" says the same thing I am.


It's hardly ironic. I never said the SAT was a good standardized test. It's not, really. Many other countries have superior, more difficult testing standards we ought to adopt. Japan, for instance.

In no way does this mean that the lack of proper standards for home schooling is acceptable because the SAT is crap. It has been improving as of late, though, which is good. It's very limited.

My standard is a good standard. Yes. Evolution is both fact and theory. Any biology class which doesn't focus on that and give it a good once over needs improvement. Many "home schools" either don't mention it or lie about it because the parents don't know squat about it and decide to purchase fake materials from "discovery institute" or a front organization like it.

You think wrong. Standardized tests are useful, if used properly. It's when you have poorly made tests that are used as the sole measure of what someone learns that is the problem. Comprehensive standardized tests that cover many subjects in depth (not just factual information, but applications) combined with a portfolio system are good.

Standardized tests are norm referenced, which is an integral feature for measuring student-to-student performance across groups.

No. More like experts who are qualified and have backing from actual scientific organizations choosing what textbooks parents will use to teach science. What a shocker. How unreasonable that scientists ought to pick the science texts students learn from!

OMG!

Puh-leeze. What you want is parents to be able to "teach" from texts, materials, and other nonsense that suit their personal agendas.

Okay. We just need to get the 10 states that don't require that to require that.

That's a good suggestion, and Ohio seems on the ball. I would made them do both, as it's more representative of what's being learned than only a standardized test. Standardized tests are useful, but limited. Go Ohio.

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Basically what I'm gathering is that you think that you're version of the world is the one that should be "taught" [sic], and that any other system is somehow flawed.

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"Have you no decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
-Joseph Welch

I really don't see how setting quality and accountability standards ranks as totalitarian. You don't seem to know just how bad the current system is with accountability. 25 of the 50 US States have either no regulations at all, or the regulations are so weak as to be ineffectual. It's a virtual anarchy where parents can do whatever they want, say whatever they want, teach whatever they want, not even be qualified, and then purchase whatever materials they want. You might as well be teaching your kids Jeebus Math. (Which one homeschool programme actually does!).


Those the most qualified. The State would solicit the recommendations of the professional organizations for each subject unit, and then display those before the parents, who then choose from among them. I would create a State Materials Committee comprised of professionals from each field who overview the textbooks.

Obviously, the government must set the regulations. I would create a sub-division of the Department of Education for Homeschooling Curriculum and Materials made up of professional educators and subject-matter experts (they could be the same people from the aforementioned committee of technocrats.

They will regulate basic standards for content and pedagogy. Content being the most important.

This is education. I would think there's a secular interest. The other solutions is to make it illegal, like it was before. If they want to do it, it comes with strings. The choice is theirs. That or make a license fee so prohibitively high... unless they go for plan B, which involves the strings.

Actual certification test is stupid. It's a hoop you jump through, but the content knowledge courses you take are useful. It doesn't need to be "teacher" certified. This would just demonstrate you have basic knowledge of the content area as background. Home schoolers have videos, workbooks, text-guides, etc.

If they were teachers, it would be better.

It is good your state had some solid standards. Your system seemingly wanted records, just in case. I am just making the records being sent in. So in effect, I am asking for them just as they might have. I don't see the point of keeping records no one is going to ask for.

Not everyone is as competent as you are. I would want to see what worsksheets and tests billy-jo-jimbob from W. Virginia says he was making.

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You should talk to Lumara. You say parents don't actually teach their children...yet that is often just what happens. She actually designed, created, and administered tests, readings, and worksheets. Amazingly, just like a teacher would.

Except I need training to do it or I don't get to.

Just the opposite of what you said. Moreover, all the videos and documentaries I see on this explicitly show parents using instruction guides and texts to teach their kids. According to you that doesn't happen, right?


Edit: I have no idea what you're talking about. I don't want "my version of the world" to be taught. There is only one valid version. I want that taught. Evolution, for instance is an objective fact. It's not any more my version than 2-2 =0.

If you think reality is my version of the world, okay, I agree.

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What the hell are you on about? I fail to see how that connects to any of my posts?
Not everyone thinks that Evolution is real, or fact. I happen to agree with you that it is. I also happen to think that a parent has the right to tell their child that its the biggest lie since Peter's number 3.

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"Have you no decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
-Joseph Welch

Edit: as for public education, I agree with Lumara that part of it was to create obedient, compliant citizens. That's one function of the school system. It has softened somewhat since the 19th century, though, and incorporated other things into it. Some of the features that promote rigidity are holdovers. They serve dual functions. *e.g. bells, rules, etc.

The schools system, and especially the social studies component, was intended to create what was called future human capital. Socially responsive citizens who believed in the American ideology and were ready to work in the economy.

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