From: Chuck Kuecker (ckuecker@mcs.net)
Date: Wed Oct 06 1999 - 16:05:10 MDT
At 02:14 PM 10/6/1999 MDT, Clint O'Dell wrote:
>
>Does Illinois allow parents to choose which school their children attend?
>Instead of puting schools on 'hit lists' they should be shut down by
>competition. Only the most succesful schools will survive. Also, wouldn't
>it be great to have statistics on success rates of graduates?
>
There are periodic calls for 'vouchers' where you supposedly get your
school taxes back, but they never get close to passage. The school
establishment has powerful lobbyists...
The hit lists supposedly have shut down a few schools in Chicago, or at
least caused a wholesale change of management. Mostly inner city schools
where the environment is more prison than school.
>
>Also, school should be optional. If schools were optional we as a people
>would be more free from government control (as a first step to not allowing
>government to tell us what we can and cannot do), and education would become
>a desire driven enterprise. Desire driven education is more successful than
>obligated education.
Absolutely. I learned 90% of what I need to run my business on my own.
College just gave me the sheepskin so I can 'prove' my abilities to those
who don't know me. I figure I use maybe 10% of what I studied in college in
real life.
Can you really apply this kind of reasoning to young children? Somehow,
they must learn to read, write, interact in positive ways, do simple math -
just in order to know they WANT to get more education. I think some sort of
'preschool' or 'elementary school' is inevitable regardless of how it is
managed. At least until we can impart the basics via that magic pill of
SF...or download it...
What do you do in the case of parents who cannot afford to pay tuition?
Private charities? Scholarships? It would be a real shame to lose good
minds simply because their parents are not successful. This is one reason
we have mandatory schooling.
Chuck Kuecker
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