From: Warrl kyree Tale'sedrin (warrl@mail.blarg.net)
Date: Thu Apr 16 1998 - 16:53:13 MDT
> From: "Sean kenny" <skenny@gifford.co.uk>
> I'm not sure this is so. The reason the state has historically taken
> responsibilty
> for the education of the vast majority of its population is because
> Governemnts
> recognised that a growing Capitalist economy had to be able to access a
> much
> larger pool of educated and skilled labour than the previously ruling and
> upper
> middle class education systems were able or willing to provide beyond a few
In the United States, in the first case where compulsory-education
laws were imposed (Boston, just before the Civil War), they caused
riots. Parents objected because the approved schools were so much
worse than the schools they were already sending their kids to.
In fact, Boston (just before the Civil War) was achieving a higher
degree of literacy among black 14-year-olds *without*
compulsory-education laws than it now achieves among all
18-year-olds *with* compulsory-education laws.
Yes, Boston at that time *did* have some schools that received tax
funding. They enrolled about 1/3 of all white students and 1/4 of
all black students.
In the US generally, the imposition of compulsory-education laws and
the creation of a general system of tax-funded schools appears to
have increased total school enrollment by about 1%. The evidence
suggests that of this 1%, about half were kids who had been running
the till in their family's business, but were sent to school to learn
to add (yes, I'm serious -- I personally ran a second-hand shop for
on my own for as much as an hour at a time while my parents attended
to other aspects of the business, prior to entering first grade, so
I know it does happen); or could no longer go on international
journeys with their parents, because they had to go to school and
study geography. The other half were taken away from jobs that their
family relied on to assist in providing a decent standard of living.
> scholarships. Market oriented Education systems seem to quickly degenerate
> into
> elitist education for the wealthy and no education at all for the poorest,
> Brazil for
> example.
One cannot expect a mass good such as education to truly achieve a
mass market, when the government's general economic policy is so
extremely mercantilist (anti-free-market thinly disguised as
capitalist) that the masses can barely afford food.
>
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