# Should we make all kids go to Public schools? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 8, 2018, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-make-all-kids-go-to-public-schools/812043 "2018-04-08T23:56:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2018, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-make-all-kids-go-to-public-schools/812043/161 "2018-04-10T21:13:24Z")
> [@Kearsen](#): > > Ok, I’ll ask you directly. Since there is a group, call them group A, that provide the majority of the distractions, violent behavior, and otherwise unproductive to learning issues, what to do with them? More money gonna do it? > It’s been tried, and failed. Group A: Are you talking about the rich bankers who redline neighborhoods, or the police who brutalize citizens until there’s a neighborhood culture against talking to police, or the local governments who tear down black business districts in order to sell the land to wealthier, white-owned businesses? Who exactly is this group A? Because surely you’re not blaming school problems on kids who grow up in poverty as a result of these policies, who live in trauma, who come to school freaked out and who have so much going on in their lives that it’s difficult to sit still. Surely you’re not blaming my nine-year-olds. > [@](#): > > The problem isn’t the kids, its the parents, lack of parental involvement, and oversight. (my opinion) > > So , now what to do about it? Oh, good: you’re blaming the parents! The parents who grew up in the same cycle, who maybe dealt with racist teachers or police themselves, who don’t trust the (mostly white) authorities they encounter, who are disparately impacted by incarceration and who may have a broken home due to drug policies that put one parent in prison! They’re at fault, goody! What do we do? We fix this shit. This is way bigger than the schools, but integrated schools are one small, vital piece of the solution. > [@anomalous1](#): > > That is more of the pointing the finger conspiratorial nonsense. Schools are bad for a variety of reasons, but when white kids do better it is their fault for contributing to white supremacy? Okay, gotcha. Your paraphrase is . . . interesting. Here’s an equally accurate paraphrase of what I said: “Schools are made out of hamster kibble and dreams, but when white kids dream about elephants, it’s their fault for killing Tinkerbell.” If you’re gone, I’ll miss you terribly; but if you’re not, you may wish to reread what I wrote and try for a more accurate understanding. ---
**Author:** ![anomalous1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e56c9b/32.png) [@anomalous1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anomalous1)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2018, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-make-all-kids-go-to-public-schools/812043/162 "2018-04-10T21:17:03Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Forgive me for jumping in here but can you tell me, what was the actual education like? For example did you learn algebra, history, and science? Did they have computers? > > How much homework did the teachers assign? > > Were the classes difficult? > > And how about the fine arts? Did your school have things like choir, band, and school plays? No worries. Yes, there were good teachers and all of the subjects were taught and we had computers (no internet for quite some time, but yeah). The classes were difficult depending on the person, definitely a challenge but the requirements to move up to the next grade were relaxed for those who were struggling, while those who proved the could do the work fine, were given more challenges/not allowed to move up if they didn’t do well, they looked at grade records and my guess is just took a wild guess. Unfair practice in my opinion. It also did have fine arts, music etc… It wasn’t heavily populated but it was there as more of an elective course, until the music department got set on fire by some idiot, then everybody’s schedule got changed according to what they were studying, some of us were stuck with an extra P.E. class in its place (early in the morning, terrible). It didn’t open again while I was there. We were only required to take two years of math, 3 for science and 4 for reading/writing related things. 2 Years of music/fine arts (see above) and the rest I honestly forget. Pretty much all of the resources were there, mismanaged a lot of the time but they were. We were short on space so a biology department (which looked mint condition, it was strange) was used as a detention area instead of for lab work. Lab work was pretty much non-existent. ---
**Author:** ![anomalous1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e56c9b/32.png) [@anomalous1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anomalous1)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2018, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-make-all-kids-go-to-public-schools/812043/163 "2018-04-10T21:22:58Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Group A: Are you talking about the rich bankers who redline neighborhoods, or the police who brutalize citizens until there’s a neighborhood culture against talking to police, or the local governments who tear down black business districts in order to sell the land to wealthier, white-owned businesses? Who exactly is this group A? > > Because surely you’re not blaming school problems on kids who grow up in poverty as a result of these policies, who live in trauma, who come to school freaked out and who have so much going on in their lives that it’s difficult to sit still. Surely you’re not blaming my nine-year-olds. > > Oh, good: you’re blaming the parents! The parents who grew up in the same cycle, who maybe dealt with racist teachers or police themselves, who don’t trust the (mostly white) authorities they encounter, who are disparately impacted by incarceration and who may have a broken home due to drug policies that put one parent in prison! They’re at fault, goody! > > What do we do? We fix this shit. This is way bigger than the schools, but integrated schools are one small, vital piece of the solution. > Your paraphrase is . . . interesting. Here’s an equally accurate paraphrase of what I said: “Schools are made out of hamster kibble and dreams, but when white kids dream about elephants, it’s their fault for killing Tinkerbell.” > > If you’re gone, I’ll miss you terribly; but if you’re not, you may wish to reread what I wrote and try for a more accurate understanding. Nice deflection but anyone re-reading your posts will get the same impression. You are blaming some wild systemic conspiracy for the failure or shortcomings of some students instead of coming up with some valuable insight. Now I may not have a plan for it, but at least I am not pretending to by blaming someone else. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2018, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-make-all-kids-go-to-public-schools/812043/164 "2018-04-10T21:24:48Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > … We know what to do. But there’s a selfish motive for wealthy folks, primarily white folks, to not do the right thing. As long as our society makes it easy for folks to not do the right thing, we continue to doom another generation of black children to structural racism. No. We disagree about what to do. You label it (rather foolishly I think) “the right thing”. I disagree with that labeling. It is NOT “the right thing” for me to send my kid to a shitty inner-city school. That might be putting her in real danger, or doing real lasting harm to her. It would be deeply immoral in my personal belief & values system to do something with that much potential for long-term harm and damage to my own child. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2018, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-make-all-kids-go-to-public-schools/812043/165 "2018-04-10T22:04:33Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Ensure that your kids grow up to make the world a good place for themselves and others. Academics is one piece of that, but not the only piece. You’re raising kids, you’re raising the future of humanity. So yeah, the right thing to do is to work to make it good for everyone. > > Your responsibility is primarily, but not only, to your own kids. > > As for “harsh,” I’d point to resegregated schools and the impoverished students left behind there. Nothing I say in this forum will possibly hold a candle to that harshness. Why is it my responsibility to do more for other people’s children than they are willing to do themselves? At some point people need to learn that in real life there is a cause and effect. People on these forums like to talk about consequences for speech they disagree with. What about consequences for unprotected sex? What about consequences for actual criminal behavior? What about consequences for political policy that literally prices millions out of work? ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2018, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-make-all-kids-go-to-public-schools/812043/166 "2018-04-10T22:55:50Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > “Best performing” is a single measure that’s often both highly precise and highly inaccurate. I do think that we ought to have significant incentives for sending kids to racially integrated schools, and significant disincentives for sending kids to racially segregated schools. Those disincentives should help fund the education for kids at integrated schools. A simple metric I look at when evaluating schools are those with the highest test scores, and lowest free and reduced lunch. There’s also plenty of places that stack rank schools based on various factors. There are other factors of course, but with just those two most of the noise is filtered out. This plays out in public vs other public schools, so the variance from charters and vouchers can be set aside. Even in that type of example, you’ll see people self select to the best schools they can afford, in the best neighborhoods they can afford. Since local public school is often tied to address, do you think there should be some extra tax levied on affluent neighborhoods to deincentivize living there over less affluent neighborhoods, with the money funneling out? I am having trouble seeing how something like that could work where the negative implementation impacts wouldn’t outweigh any potential benefits. ---
**Author:** ![ArtBeforeScience](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@ArtBeforeScience](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ArtBeforeScience)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2018, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-make-all-kids-go-to-public-schools/812043/167 "2018-04-10T23:03:34Z")
Two answer the original question, I went to public schools and didn’t care for it. It wasn’t awful - but I spent a lot of time in classes where the teacher wasn’t very inspiring. At the time I felt that being in private school would have given me higher quality instruction. I wanted every minute to be intense learning. Not only unrealistic, but not meeting the needs of other students. I think citizens should have a basic level of education: literacy, critical thinking, reasoning, civics, history, applied functional competency in math, science, grammar, whatever is being taught. You can’t have technical skills without some level of thinking, and that’s the rub. The forces of ignorance do not want us thinking for ourselves, but they do want a pool of compliant, qualified labor for whatever the industry du jour might want. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2018, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-make-all-kids-go-to-public-schools/812043/168 "2018-04-10T23:08:21Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > A simple metric I look at when evaluating schools are those with the highest test scores, and lowest free and reduced lunch. I understand the former, but the latter? Test scores are at least partly due to teachers and administration–but why are you looking to shield your children from being around poor people? Right now, I appreciate your honesty in debating. I’m afraid I’m not feeling the same for pretty much anyone else who’s arguing this issue with me; the misrepresentations of what I say are too exhausting to correct one by one. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2018, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-make-all-kids-go-to-public-schools/812043/169 "2018-04-10T23:24:46Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Why is it my responsibility to do more for other people’s children than they are willing to do themselves? Everyone is someone else’s child. That’s trivial. We’re talking about what we should do for humans who can’t do it for themselves, i.e., for children. If we’re to live in a society, we need to be responsible for the helpless among us; and there’s few folks so helpless as minors whose parents are unable/unwilling to help them. > [@](#): > > At some point people need to learn that in real life there is a cause and effect. People on these forums like to talk about consequences for speech they disagree with. What about consequences for unprotected sex? What about consequences for actual criminal behavior? Irrelevant nonsense, because my nine-year-olds haven’t had unprotected sex or engaged in criminal behavior, and they’re the folks we’re talking about helping here. > [@](#): > > What about consequences for political policy that literally prices millions out of work? WTF? ---
**Author:** ![Itself](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/d07c76/32.png) [@Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Itself)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2018, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-make-all-kids-go-to-public-schools/812043/170 "2018-04-10T23:37:21Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Perhaps your public school teachers would’ve taught proofreading? 😉 Meh, I’m a mathematician. Words are just numbers that aren’t trying hard enough. > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > In any case, the interest served is that, if everyone is in it together, folks with the most power in our society have a much more vested interest in ensuring strong public schools. It’s not that I don’t want a rich smartie like you to get the accelerated education you deserve. It’s that I want the poor smarties to get the education they deserve, too. Sure (though I’m definitely not rich and have never been rich, and whether I’m smart is an arbitrary opinion), I want a great public school system too. I’m just not willing to sacrifice students’ education throughout the decades and decades it would take to actually get to that ideal system. Even if everyone can’t have nice things, it’s still fine for some people to have nice things. ---
**Author:** ![MacLir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9e8a1a/32.png) [@MacLir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacLir)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2018, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-make-all-kids-go-to-public-schools/812043/171 "2018-04-10T23:38:55Z")
> [@DavidwithanR](#): > > There’s home schooling and then there’s home schooling. > > Home schooling to isolate kids from the influence of dangerous things like thinking for yourself and learning about the world is far too common. It’s mostly religious. There is also Home schooling to isolate kids from the influence of dangerous things like NOT thinking for yourself and parroting the fuzzy thinking common in too many educators. :dubious: I was just about ROTFLMAO when my daughter started working and remarked about a co-worker “Now I know why people are so down on public schools.” :rolleyes: Not to mention the cliques based on sociologic groups. And that one is very much “religious.” I will stipulate that home-schooling is not a panacea; my daughter was so focused on learning it was scary. YMMV For the record; she was tutored in reading, then given math workbooks until about second or third grade equivalent, then started with a computer based curriculum which she used through high school level. Yes, it had a Christian component, but that was basically a Bible history class, not woohoo weirdness. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2018, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-make-all-kids-go-to-public-schools/812043/172 "2018-04-10T23:57:19Z")
What about every year, the county racks and stacks the schools. The bottom school has its students placed into the best performing schools? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2018, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-make-all-kids-go-to-public-schools/812043/173 "2018-04-11T00:10:14Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > What about every year, the county racks and stacks the schools. The bottom school has its students placed into the best performing schools? What about we use methods that are shown to work, like integrating schools? What about we embark on a campaign to undo centuries of racism (and calling that a conspiracy fundamentally misunderstands what a conspiracy is), including things like redlining neighborhoods and reforming our penal system? What about we don’t look for kind of bonkers gimmicks, and instead treat the disease, not just its symptoms? ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2018, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-make-all-kids-go-to-public-schools/812043/174 "2018-04-11T00:12:04Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Everyone is someone else’s child. That’s trivial. We’re talking about what we should do for humans who can’t do it for themselves, i.e., for children. If we’re to live in a society, we need to be responsible for the helpless among us; and there’s few folks so helpless as minors whose parents are unable/unwilling to help them. Sure. But that requires securing the poor neighborhoods so that they are safe for businesses, other people’s kids, and the residents. Good luck with the level of policing necessary for that. > [@](#): > > Irrelevant nonsense, because my nine-year-olds haven’t had unprotected sex or engaged in criminal behavior, and they’re the folks we’re talking about helping here. Parents are responsible for their children. If they don’t want children in a crappy environment perhaps the parents should make better life choices? > [@](#): > > WTF? It’s no mystery that minimum wage and illegal immigration have exacerbated the problems of the poor. Now if you really want to solve generational poor education you’d have to take the kids out of the environment a good portion of each year. I don’t think that’d ever happen because it would require acknowledging that the poor have some agency in their own environment and situation. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2018, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-make-all-kids-go-to-public-schools/812043/175 "2018-04-11T00:23:16Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > What about we use methods that are shown to work, like integrating schools? What about we embark on a campaign to undo centuries of racism (and calling that a conspiracy fundamentally misunderstands what a conspiracy is), including things like redlining neighborhoods and reforming our penal system? What about we don’t look for kind of bonkers gimmicks, and instead treat the disease, not just its symptoms? Sure, I’m for that. Find the most segregated schools and divvy those students up to other schools. If you have a school that is all black, divvy the students up into the all-white schools. That would work, right? ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2018, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-make-all-kids-go-to-public-schools/812043/176 "2018-04-11T00:35:31Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Only they’re out in the rural parts of the county, and they don’t provide transportation or breakfast or lunch, so if you don’t have a car, or if you suffer from food insecurity, maybe they’re not the right choice for you? When did it become the schools’ job to provide breakfast and lunch? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2018, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-make-all-kids-go-to-public-schools/812043/177 "2018-04-11T00:51:44Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > When did it become the schools’ job to provide breakfast and lunch? :dubious: When we decided, as a society, that it was more important to us to have well-fed children than it was to look down our nose at filthy peasant parents. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2018, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-make-all-kids-go-to-public-schools/812043/178 "2018-04-11T00:52:49Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Sure, I’m for that. Find the most segregated schools and divvy those students up to other schools. If you have a school that is all black, divvy the students up into the all-white schools. That would work, right? That’s what happened during first desegregation, and the result was that a lot of black cultural institutions were destroyed. Why not break up the all-white schools instead? Better yet, why not mix 'em up, keeping vital cultural institutions alive, just integrated? ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2018, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-make-all-kids-go-to-public-schools/812043/179 "2018-04-11T00:59:56Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > I’ve read it. It doesn’t seem you have. The linked paper describes many different studies, points to some general weaknesses in some of those studies, and strengths in other studies. Here are some favorable ones identified: And those points somehow magically don’t apply to their own study? Yeah. Permit me to scoff. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2018, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-make-all-kids-go-to-public-schools/812043/180 "2018-04-11T01:01:02Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > That’s what happened during first desegregation, and the result was that a lot of black cultural institutions were destroyed. Why not break up the all-white schools instead? > > Better yet, why not mix 'em up, keeping vital cultural institutions alive, just integrated? Well, is it important to keep black cultural institutions intact, or making sure our kids are educated? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-make-all-kids-go-to-public-schools/812043.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-make-all-kids-go-to-public-schools/812043.md?page=10)