American Public Schools: Dumb Slave Factories
I don’t know how school was for you, but when I was a kid I in school we had something called “the three Rs”. The “Rs” were reading, writing, and arithmetic. The amount of ridicule proffered by my classmates and me about the stupidity of this phrase was substantial. We thought: if you’re going to call a system “the three Rs”, all three of the items should START with an R, otherwise why not include HistoRy? Hell, include “Recess” -- at least that starts with an R!
Honestly, we just thought our school system was stupid. We would often ask ourselves and our teachers: “Why are we learning this? It seems like a waste of time.”
And you know what? We were right to think that, because there is something seriously wrong with the American public school system.
The massive failure of public schools
The United States spends more money on public schools than any other country in the world.
U.S. education spending tops global list, study shows
:
The United States spent more than $11,000 per elementary student in 2010 and more than $12,000 per high school student. When researchers factored in the cost for programs after high school education such as college or vocational training, the United States spent $15,171 on each young person in the system — more than any other nation covered in the report.
That sum inched past some developed countries and far surpassed others. Switzerland's total spending per student was $14,922 while Mexico averaged $2,993 in 2010. The average OECD nation spent $9,313 per young person.
And yet, the Pearson/Economist Intelligence Unit rated US education as 14th best in the world, just behind Russia.
Index - Which countries have the best schools?
In 2015, the Programme for International Student Assessment rated U.S. high school students No. 40 globally in Math and No. 24 in Science and Reading. The President of the National Center on Education and the Economy said of the results "the United States cannot long operate a world-class economy if our workers are, as the OECD statistics show, among the worst-educated in the world". Former U.S. Education Secretary John B. King, Jr. acknowledged the results in conceding U.S. students were well behind their peers.
On the world stage, U.S. students fall behind
In the latest Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) measuring math literacy in 2015, U.S. students ranked 40th in the world. The U.S. average math score of 470 represents the second decline in the past two assessments — down from 482 in 2012 and 488 in 2009. The U.S. score in 2015 was 23 points lower than the average of all of the nations taking part in the survey.
Despite spending almost twice as much on education as other developed countries, the US lags behind and is getting worse.
The Factory Model School
Often thought of as a pejorative by school administrators, the factory model school system is a term adopted by school reformers in the 20th century to describe a school system that does not prepare young people for the changing world, but rather churns out irrelevant order-followers who are ill-prepared and ill-suited to take a roll in our evolving economy.
The leader of The New American Academy, Shimon Waronker, says this:
The American education model, he says, was actually copied from the 18th-century Prussian model designed to create docile subjects and factory workers.
He wants schools to operate more like the “networked collaborative” world of today.
When you look at the American school system, which has evolved very little since its inception, you see rooms full of children with a single teacher -- sometimes an unpaid assistant if they’re lucky -- whose job it is to make the children stay seated, be quite, do what they’re told, listen for the bell, follow instructions, and don’t be disobedient.
What they are training children to do is show up to work on time, punch the clock, listen to your forman, and don’t make trouble at work.
Even conceding the fact that the system itself is failing at its goals, the goals themselves are failing the children, and the children are failing the society.
Corporal Punishment
It seems like an anachronism, but in reality there are many places in the US today where teachers and administrators hit children today, and there is really nothing on the books preventing this practice.
In Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U.S. 651 (1977), the US Supreme Court held this:
- The Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause of the Eighth Amendment does not apply to disciplinary corporal punishment in public schools. Pp. 430 U. S. 664-671.
…
- The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment does not require notice and hearing prior to imposition of corporal punishment as that practice is authorized and limited by the common law. Pp. 430 U. S. 672-682.
In other words, there is no Federal legal protection for children against being struck by teachers in school, and that parents do not need to be notified prior to imposing corporal punishment.
Even though it’s not common practice everywhere in the country, there actually are still places that do this.
Where Teachers Are Still Allowed to Spank Students: Corporal punishment is legal in 19 states
The effects of corporal punishment on children are well documented -- they’re not good.
Harmful effects of spanking a toddler can trigger bad behavior — even 10 years later
Risks of Harm from Spanking Confirmed by Analysis of Five Decades of Research
Past abuse leads to loss of gray matter in brains of adolescents
Children Who Are Spanked Have Lower IQs, New Research Finds
Children Who Get Spanked Have Lower IQs
Study: Spanking lowers IQ, fosters aggression, depression
Propaganda
Anecdotally, when I was a kid the social propaganda for my class was “Everyone is equal!”
We had murals everywhere of people of different cultures and ethnicities holding hands around the whole world. That kind of stuff wasn’t bad, and it generally stuck with everyone in my class to the point that I really think that racism and discrimination for things that people have no choice about had more or less vanished or become a vestigial appendage of a bygone era.
And it was part of that era, quite purposefully so, in fact.
In The Elementary School Journal Vol. 33, No. 4 (Dec., 1932), pp. 277-282, Howard L. Parker penned the article A Plan for Sifting Propaganda in the Schools:
Propaganda, as it affects the schools, is the effort of individuals or organizations to influence the habits, attitudes, or ideals of the pupils in certain desired ways. It ranges from the direct and aboveboard action of the man who prints his advertisements in blotters to be distributed free to the school children to the more subtle use of contests and biased statements in textbooks and supplementary reading material.
The article goes into detail about the types of propaganda, their levels of effectiveness on children, and how to implement them. It discusses handing out materials at times when children are in an accommodating frame of mind, such as lunch, recess, or during after school activities, and even about placing propaganda into textbooks.
It’s happening today, right now, all over the country:
In collaboration with the federal program VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America; the “volunteers” are paid), DPI urged white students to wear white wristbands “as a reminder about your privilege, and as a personal commitment to explain why you wear the wristband.”
A flyer that was on the DPI Web site and distributed at a DPI-VISTA training classes urged whites to “put a note on your mirror or computer screen as a reminder to think about privilege,” to “make a daily list of the ways privilege played out” and to conduct an “internal dialogue” asking questions such as “How do I make myself comfortable with privilege?” and “What am I doing today to undo my privilege?”
After criticism erupted, the DPI removed the flyer from its Web site and posted a dishonest statement claiming that the wristbands were a hoax perpetrated by conservatives. But, again, the flyer DPI posted explicitly advocated the wristbands.
In California:
Why is the California teachers union Association distributing political propaganda posters to teachers and other educators for display “in your school, classroom, and beyond?”
The California Teachers Association doesn’t offer teachers a guide for the use of these posters in classroom instruction. Nor does it recommend the posters as catalysts for students to think about the nature and purpose of government. Instead, the posters have been presented at union conferences and on the union website with an associated “Social Justice Toolkit” for political advocacy.
It’s obvious these posters are meant to advance an ideology rather than encourage classroom discussion. And from the perspective of the California Teachers Association, is there any valid discussion to be had about the righteousness of “Social Justice?” The California Teachers Association seemingly regards its posters as declarations of self-evident truths for students to absorb and adopt. Any questioning of the messages on the posters is probably a trick by the ruling class to suppress social justice and maintain its power.
Propaganda posters in California public school classrooms: union dogma or educational opportunity?
About sex:
Imagine you have a 10- or 11-year-old child, just entering a public middle school. How would you feel if, as part of a class ostensibly about the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, he and his classmates were given “risk cards” that graphically named a variety of solitary and mutual sex acts? Or if, in another lesson, he was encouraged to disregard what you told him about sex, and to rely instead on teachers and health clinic staff members?
That prospect would horrify most parents. But such lessons are part of a middle-school curriculum that Dennis M. Walcott, the New York City schools chancellor, has recommended for his system’s newly mandated sex-education classes. There is a parental “opt out,” but it is very limited, covering classes on contraception and birth control.
Does Sex Ed Undermine Parental Rights?
At a public high school in McAllen, Texas, students were ordered to stand up and recite the Mexican national anthem and Mexican pledge of allegiance. School authorities have failed to explain how reciting a pledge of allegiance to a foreign nation has any educational value
Political propaganda
Chicago Public Schools officials sent home a letter with all 381,000 students blasting Gov. Bruce Rauner and ignoring any role Democrats may have played in the state’s budget woes.
The “Dear Parents” letter begins by stating “Governor Bruce Rauner, just like President Trump, has decided to attack those who need the most help.” Twice the letter accuses Gov. Rauner of “cheating” children. Once it says the governor “stole” from kids.
The letter goes on to cite Chicago Public Schools CEO Forrest Claypool’s often repeated claim that the governor broke a promise by blocking Chicago from receiving $215 million for city schools.
One CPS parent who contacted WGN wrote: “This is so inappropriate. How can he send political propaganda home?”
All CPS students sent home with letter accusing Gov. Rauner of ‘cheating’ kids
This could go on, really…
There is a systematic program of propaganda in public schools. It was laid out in 1932 by Howard L. Parker and has been refined and diligently crafted into a weapon to use against the minds of children in the US -- instead of teaching them the skills they need to survive and thrive in our economy.
Lastly, there’s something I personally remember that I want to share.
In one of my geography textbooks in high school there was a chapter about cloud formations. The chapter outlined the various types of clouds that naturally occur on our planet, like stratus, cirrus, cumulonimbus...
And chemtrails.
Yes, chemtrails were in my textbook as a naturally occuring cloud category.
That is so beyond stupid that I has to be propaganda. There’s no way that got put in there by mistake.
It’s best to opt out
It is clear at this point that public schooling in America is a total waste.
The Government uses schools to control the minds of children to become obedient slaves to the State, and with so few actual skills that they must depend on the state.
It’s a slave factory -- best to get your own children set up in a good homeschooling program.
While standardized test scores aren't always the best way to measure academic achievement, studies consistently find that home-schoolers do seem to outperform public schooled students on tests such as the ACT and SAT.
The Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) commissioned a study drawing data for the 2007-2008 school year from multiple standardized testing services. The national average percentile scores were higher in all subject areas by at least 34 percentile points, and as high as 39 percentile points. Factors such as parental college degrees, how much parents spent on education, level of state regulation, and sex of the students made little difference in the range of scores in all areas among the home-schooled children.
Analysis from a 2015 study conducted by Brian Ray of the National Home Education Research Institute reveals that home educated students usually score 15 to 30 percentile points higher than public school students on standardized tests. This study further concludes that these results were achieved regardless of income level within the students' families or educational status of the students' parents.
Other recent news from the National Home Education Research Institute states that the College Board reported 2014 SAT scores for home-schooled students as being significantly higher than scores for their traditionally schooled counterparts.
Statistics on Public School Vs. Homeschool
Homeschooling also allows you to actually teach your kids the values that you believe, rather than whatever indoctrination is convenient for the State at that given point in history.
I currently believe that homeschool is the best answer to the problems of the public school slavery factory, although I will likely write more about the systems of education I believe are best for children generally, weather homeschooled or public schooled.
What do you think?
This is a very complex topic and folks have many different opinions about it.
Let me know in the comments below what you think.
Education systems the world over are pretty much the same. Homeschooling is the only way to go if you want freethinking children and not drones. But there is a trend happening where governments are outlawing homeschooling. Folks need to be aware of this and make sure they elect officials that don't promote outlawing homeschooling.
That sort of thing is the worst tyranny. It's bad enough that schools are brainwashing camps; but they force kids to go there and outlaw alternatives?
It's evil.
I hated school when I was in it. I enjoyed spots and social activities but hated the work. It didn’t make any sense to me why I needed to study anthropology and classical music appreciation. Why not skip me ahead with a focused study plan. Why spend 2 years learning unrelated subject matter. Now my son is starting school and I feel mixed emotions about how to guide him through this fucked up system. Thanks for the share!
Kids are desperate to learn--what they need to know. They know perfectly well they don't need to know the dates and actors in the Hundred Years War. They will study stuff they wanna know for days at a time.
Someday, when they develop interest in history, they'll do that to learn about the Hundred Years War, because they like to learn, and know how. If their nose is ground into crap they actively resist learning when they're young, guess what they learn?
They learn learning sucks, and they don't like it. When they are interested in something later in life, they'll sigh and go back to watching sports, because they'd have to learn to find out, and they detest learning, and don't know how to do it, because they spent their childhood rebelling against it.
Do you and them a favor: don't do that to them. Most of what they want to know as kids is pretty much what they need to learn. There are some things that they don't know they need to know, that you know they need to know, but you can explain to them why they need to know it, and it won't suck as bad as the Hundred Years War did for the rest of their cohort.
You'll teach them to be lifelong learners, to love to learn, and never regret it.
Interesting out take. I agree, there's so much stuff they force on kids that they have no interest in. I think the drop out rate would be a whole lot less if they let kids determine, say, the level of interest they have in math, if a kid just wants to know general or basic math let them excel at that, if a kid wants to be a math genius let them pick challenging math. This one shoe fits all sizes just doesn't cut it.
Off topic...did you happen to see that press release today where that kid down in Florida who shot up that school had a trust fund his foster mother, or adoptive mother left him in excess of eight hundred thousand dollars?
I didn't see that about Cruz.
I taught my kids math by handing them a tape measure and installing drywall. They needed to be able to do fractions, and figgered it out quick.
I think that's the best way to teach kids: put them in situations where knowledge they don't have is necessary, and get out of the way.
Edit: the drywall math lesson wouldn't work most places, as most places use rational measuring systems, unlike the US, where instead of a centimeter of ten millimeters, you have inches of quarters, eighths, and etc.
Well documented work. I too have reached similar conclusions - that games would serve as better platforms for education than skools. Higher education has created depth with no breadth, and therefore no context. We need a knew weigh - measuring everything we were taught, again to see if it is valid.
outdoor is an awesome teacher
I enjoyed reading the beginning of your post, and then it lost some of its coherence and punch.
I think there is a lot wrong with the factory model of schooling, and we have a lot to learn from some of the top ranked countries out there that use a more holistic model to educate students.
Amazing article. Just last week I had my 10 year old 5th grader opt out of the Florida FSA. I plan on doing a short video about opting out of standarize testing (specifically in FL). I will mention your write up. I wish I could break free from the slave wage system and home school.
Great research.
Sometimes it is a minor differnece and we miss it. Before the education was hijacked by morons, it the educational system that was hijacked by a more intelligent breed. These were people who put the morons in strategic places to make sure that it goes down hill.
The history is full of proof of the fact that it is the young mind that is the fertile ground that is most effected by propaganda.
I remember this father arguing with a teacher. The teacher was insisting he be there for a nonsensical event where his child was not even participating. The teacher went on to accuse the parents of not taking part in the children's education. To this the man replied simply .......
'Honey you do your job and teach him the ABCD. I don't expect much from this system. You just give him the words and don't worry I would be the one to teach my child how to use them'
Home schooling is the way to go. In Norway, they let the kids out in the woods and just let them explore. Best way to learn.
It's not just the american schools , trust me , it's most industrialized world turning kids into future obedient factory/office workers.
Silicon valley has it's flaws but it certainly bucks the conventional education and corporate culture. That single fact maybe accountable for a high number of successful startups in the area.
Here's the current state of our "Education" system ...
Creativity vampires.
One thing I instantly thought about this gif is "hey... at least THESE kids are getting one-on-one attention"!
Excellent post. Well-written and researched, with cogent analysis and exegesis. I homeschooled my sons and do not regret it one bit. It was difficult as I was a single parent, worked full time, and never once hired a sitter or caregiver.
I just brought my kids to work with me, and taught them how to do useful shit. They learned to do things well from me and the guys I worked with, who respected them because they earned it by working hard.
At the age of 10 my eldest bought his first vehicle with wages he earned working construction. He couldn't drive on public roads, but I cut some cat trails on our property where he could, and he avidly practiced low speed crashes and stupid mistakes where it was pretty safe to do.
When he got a driver's license, I had no worries about his inexperience behind the wheel, and he knew better than most adults what kinds of stupid things not to do, because he'd already done them.
Since we lived in the woods, and there were few neighbors, around puberty I enrolled them in public High School, because that's where all the girls in the county were, and there are things I can't teach them. When they hit the school, despite that I'd never once cracked a textbook with them, they were at the top of their class in every subject.
See, we had the internet at home, via satellite, and if they were curious about Indians, or Astronomy, or the Ancient Greeks, I'd say 'well, let's find out what we can find out' and we'd go online. They'd write me a paper on it, and I'd let them win at Duke Nukem if they did a good job.
They loved learning when they got to High School. The longer they were in High School, the less they liked school, which was exciting at first because of all the social opportunities. They were down to B's and C's by the time graduation rolled around, from straight A's without effort when they started, because they had learned to despise the propaganda, institutional abuse, and various mind-numbing indoctrinatory instruction they were subjected to.
Georgetown and other schools still desperately tried to recruit my kids, as they were leaders in almost all the organizations, from football to student government, from band to debate, the school offered, and their homeschooling made them extraordinary leaders in a society of programmed slaves.
Fortunately, my kids went into private industry rather than progress further in their indoctrinations, and the debt it brings. Better men than I.
Thanks very much!
Thanks for sharing that story. It sounds like you had the courage to really run with your own values, and it paid off.
How old are your boys now?
They're in their 20's, except my youngest, who will be eight this year.