Reply #8: But the public school system was never meant to meet the student's needs. [View All]

[PinkTiger]

It was devised to meet the needs of society.
I learned that when I was getting my degree in education, during the professional "History of Education" courses.

I was appalled. I still am. But now I understand a lot more about what school is really supposed to be. It is to make us all good worker bees for the state.
And good citizens who do as they're told.

I failed miserably on all counts.

Here;s a link and some copy from it:

http://www.arc.org/erase/history.html

snip: "Some real reasons we have public education in the United States:


Public schools give businesses something they need: a pre-trained workforce that has been taught important skills. These skills may include ability in subject matter like reading or math, but even more important to business is attitude. Public schools teach "skills" that business owners find very useful like competition, obedience and respect for authority.


Public schools create the illusion that everyone has an equal chance. Even though some schools are rich and some are poor, the fact that everyone can go to public school is supposed to prove that if people of color can't get ahead, there I something wrong with them with their culture, their families and community, or their genes.


One way of looking at the history of public education in the United States is to see how wealthy people and business shaped the schools to contain and control poor people and turn them into useful workers and consumers. That's why rich people are willing to support public schools with their tax dollars because they benefit.


In earlier times, business people and their supporters were not shy about saying so directly. Horace Mann, Massachusetts' first state Superintendent of Schools told business owners in the 1840s that they would get better workers if they paid for public education. Workers who had been to school were distinguished by their "docility and quickness in applying themselves to work, personal cleanliness and fidelity in the performance of duties," not by their ability to read or do math.