If you look at many countries in Central America, where there is no free public education, many children don’t go to school.
I have a friend who adopted a girl at age 9 who had never been in school; today she’s in high school (a few grades behind but doing well otherwise), Her parents couldn’t afford to send her to school.
It seems to me that without free public education you end up with the populace trapped in a cycle of poverty, and virtually no middle class.
(Of course, I’m not an educator or sociologist or economist, so what do I know?)
You’re not misreading me, though I think the ongoing rates of illiteracy are just one symptom of failure. Obviously we need to consider the impact on literate students as well, and the only good evidence I could find over a long period (the SAT) seems to indicate that at least for the highest tier of students, the trend has been pretty much downward since we reached something near the current rate of high school graduation. I think such a precipitous drop indicates that something is not working well in our educational system (though of course other cultural factors may be at play).
How much time in the average kid’s life is wasted by sitting in a classroom where the kid is completely bored? All that time is doing very little to increase the student’s educational level. The amount of material that is actually retained by the average student from the overall curriculum is incredibly small, so there is little rationale for forcing all students into a standard curriculum of schooling.
Keeping a kid bored for 13 years is not going to increase his/her curiosity level or love of learning (and I don’t mean “learning” in sense of knowing random facts from our standard school curriculum). Do we really think that a high school diploma has really “educated” that person working at McDonald’s in any useful way? Instead of 13 years stuck in a jail for kids only to end up flipping burgers, that recent high school grad might already have spent half a decade learning skills or a trade in something interesting to him/her that would make him/her a more valued member of society. More time in the real world and less in confined regimented boring schools surely would benefit many people.
By the way, I’m not saying that it’s impossible to design a school system that would be better than what we do in the U.S. But I do think our current system is fundamentally flawed to its core and is better-suited to produce a set of mindless obedient workers than to educate.
One anecdote (which I don’t introduce as formal statistical evidence of anything) – I recently came upon journals and letters written by both of my grandfathers during WWII. One went to school until 4th grade, and the other to 6th grade. Their level of writing and ability to express themselves was higher than many students whose essays I have graded at fairly elite colleges. Both came from immigrant families with little to no formal education.
I think there is something to be said for teaching basic skills in a few years of schooling. But I think forcing everyone into the same mold for 13 years is bound to turn many of them off of “education” for life… and (this is a bit more tendentious) I think we are now reaping the “benefits” of that attitude after almost a century of encouraging and requiring more and more schooling.
Assuming this is about mandatory education, and the majority of that is done in public schools, then it works very well at a basic level. Literacy rates are very high. Almost everybody has basic arithmetic skills. Moving up from the basic level, schools become less effective.
SAT scores are not a good means of comparing the quality of education over the past 50 years. The percentage of students taking the test has changed, the test itself has changed, and educational programs now contain many areas of study not reflected in the test.
They don’t, but by that point they are already demonstrating areas of preference as well as academic strengths and weaknesses. I’m not advocating ceasing their general education in lieu of an apprentice program, only tracking them into courses that will serve them better. In a perfect world there would be classes broken into three levels: Life Skills Proficiency, General Academic, and Advanced/ Specialized. Most people would be placed into a blended program with subjects being taught at varying levels. An arts track student for example, might initially test at the level of/ or be placed into a LSP mathematics class. If they perform well there, then next semester they might be moved into a GA class if they are interested in math.
The point is not to teach everyone moderately advanced math that they will never use, it is to ensure that everyone can do what is needed to be successful in life. Those who show interest will be rewarded with more challenging classes. Self motivated students, or those with parents who drive them harder will naturally fall into advanced or specialized courses anyway. Those who lack motivation or interest should be given basic skills and begin training for the world earlier. They will land a good job faster and be able to support themselves at an earlier date. Should they change their mind as adults, there is always adult education and community colleges.
You’re absolutely right, though there were some movements in the 19th century to try to move all schooling to state control.
Anyhow, to be completely accurate, yes, this is a discussion about “mandatory schooling.” Private schools seem less relevant to considering the question of mandatory schooling, since most students who would be unlikely to attend school (if given a choice) are probably not the ones enrolling in private schools.
But you’re right – I shouldn’t claim this is all about public schools. Most of the claims apply to the school system in general, though I think the biggest problems come out of the public school system (and aspects of that system that have been adopted by private schools).
According to this comprehensive study, somewhere around a quarter of Americans lack basic math skills, and the level of “basic” literacy is pretty low (check out the sample questions):
Explain to me why the number of students getting above 700 or 750 should have gone down between 1960 and 1990 as more students took the test, unless our educational system is failing the “best and the brightest.”
Also, please note that I chose a 30-year window when the test was static. And as for “many areas of student not reflected in the test,” the traditional SAT tested reading comprehension, vocabulary, and basic (algebra level) math skills, as well as basic logic in the way questions were posed. Aren’t these a prerequisite for most other areas of study?
Learning aside, I think the societal benefit of not having millions of 8-16 year olds roaming the streets with nothing to do is totally worth the $800 billion or so we spend on public education.
You list a lot of numbers, but no link to anywhere you got them from. How can we judge the quality of your numbers unless we can see where they came from and how they were arrived at?
I think you are judging education by too narrow a window. Your grandfathers could read and write at a decent level without much schooling, but could they tell you anything at all about cellular biology, the periodic table, evolution or genetics? Could they have participated in a conversation about Genghis Khan or Susan B Anthony? Could they have spoken a single word of Spanish? When they were done fighting in the war would they have had the ability to work in an industry other than the one their father’s had worked in before them? Even if they did find a different job, if they took a job they disliked would they have been somewhat prepared to switch industries? IMHO that is the purpose of mandatory education, to give everyone a wide spectrum of knowledge. Kids in 1840 might have been pretty damn literate by modern standards but that would have been almost all they knew outside of what they learned directly from their parent’s line of work or what they could learn by being forced into an apprenticeship at 10 or 11.
That cite shows questions to determine literacy that would have made the literacy level in 1852 a single digit number. You’ve offered no evidence of schools lowering literacy levels or maintaining high literacy levels based on a consistent definition of literacy.
There are a variety of factors that contribute to that, but a major one that isn’t discussed much is the value of the narrow skill set reflected in the SATs.
But more to the point, SAT scores don’t pertain to basic skill levels.
Yes, a pre-requisite of limited value. At one time they were the only requisite. High SAT scores were once a guarantee of acceptance to college, which was the goal. Now, the goal is acceptance to a particular college, and high SAT scores alone are insufficient to guarantee that. Students have to present a broader skill set to colleges, and advanced study in particular areas that are not reflected in the SATs at all.
Also, I didn’t say that the SATs didn’t reflect any changes in particular areas of education. I said they were a poor measure of the quality of education. And I didn’t say schools were effective at anything past the basic skill levels. I agree that we shouldn’t assume school=education. I don’t assume high SAT score=education either.
Draft stats are from various reports from official Armed Services draft reports. SAT numbers are from stats released by the company that administers the test. These numbers aren’t really open to manipulation, since records were kept about how many soldiers were given exemptions from the draft due to illiteracy and stats were kept about how people scored on the SAT. There’s no easy online link I can give you to this stuff, though.
The numbers of the early 1800s come from 1840 census data (which is publicly available), corroborated with estimates of various historians on the basis of will signatures, statements on other legal documents, etc. I’ll freely admit that we can’t directly compare those numbers to 20th century data, but historians generally accept that literacy was quite high in the U.S. compared to almost all other countries at that time.
Almost all the other stats come from the National Center for Education Statistics, including the NAAL (National Assessment of Adult Literacy):
Actually, even if there is a “cite” (= “absolute indisputable truth because you can click on it”), I doubt that we can really interpret that data with much certitude. The population of the the U.S. was constantly changing in drastic ways over the time span these statistics represent, and you’re talking about huge transformations in the national economy and social organization of the country, not to mention the role that education plays in those transformations. To read these statistics as though they could represent some kind of static nature of the effectiveness of public schools is a self-deception.
Moreover, the “mandatory” in the phrase “mandatory public schools” has changed as well. Making school “mandatory” for the “population” of Mass. in 1852 could have meant (and probably did mean) something entirely different than LAPD issuing tickets to parents of LA Unified kids picked up on 9th and Alvarado at 11:00am today. Over time we need to know who actually found their way into the class rooms (and who didn’t), as well as who actually got tested for all of these figures. As it stands, they’re almost abstractions, really.
How many people trying desperately to change careers due to the economic downturn in recent years can remember this information? How many of them find what they remember of it from high school useful in switching careers?
But that’s not the only alternative. Before mandatory schooling, these kids weren’t roaming the streets for the most part either. They were working or apprenticing. Remember that adolescence wasn’t invented into the early 20th century.
I’m not saying that we can or should just return to the old system. I’m just saying that jailing them in a one-size-fits-all school may not be the only solution.
Can you give me an example of some skills traditionally associated with higher (secondary) education that one can achieve without the skills of the traditional SAT?
I’m not saying it’s the greatest test, and for that matter, I don’t think it was ever designed to measure “skills” – it was designed to measure “aptitude” for higher learning.
If the goal of our school system is solely the admission to more schooling, something is wrong. Why should the goal of anyone be acceptance to college? What about being an educated adult, being happy, and making a useful contribution to society? (The SAT doesn’t measure that either.)
I think literacy levels show schools are not that effective at basic skills levels, either.
I agree the SAT isn’t a great measure. However, I wanted to try to get some measure of the impact of more schooling in the 20th century other than basic literacy stats. The SAT provides one set of data points based on a consistent test administered over a 30-year period. Do you know of any better measure, because I’d really be happy to know of one. (That wasn’t sarcasm… I really would like to find more data.)
Since when have kids been “jailed” in a one size fits all school in the past fifteen years? There are magnet schools, private schools, and honors and AP courses. Sure there are huge gaps in the system but you are exaggerating tremendously in order to win an Internet argument.
Why? Seriously. I’m not talking about employing a 3-year-old as a chimney sweep or even an 8-year-old. But why can’t a 13-year-old at least begin apprenticing or take part in some real-world profession? Do most students really learn more than they would having actual experience by staying in school?