AphroditeGoneAwry
failure to thrive
- Joined
- Feb 20, 2009
- Messages
- 5,585
- MBTI Type
- INfj
- Enneagram
- 451
- Instinctual Variant
- sx/so
A homeschool co-op has the potential to become just an unregulated bureaucracy, with less accountability than today's public schools. Sort of like a neighborhood association.
On the contrary, because it's small and highly invested, it has the potential to be the most accountable. Strangers don't care nearly as much about each child as parents who know those children. Much less distant school officials and government bureaucrats.
This is simplistic. A situation in which one parent in every family has to forego a professional life (and the income it might bring) to coordinate and deliver education is incredibly wasteful of human resources. You might find homeschooling your own children to be personally fulfilling, but one person's individual notion of fulfillment is a bad yardstick for public policy decisions. In a democracy, it is everyone's job to worry about the issues that face society, at least as long as one wishes to belong to that society. "Government by the people" works only when people educate themselves on the issues and get involved.
Yes, it is. Simplicity works best. Contrast that with the way our burgeoning government works now. See a correlation?
And teaching children is a part of the human experience. What more important issue is there, really? Parents should not procreate if they will shirk this most important facet of raising human beings. If they do shirk, it falls to society to pick up the slack, yes, but that should be the exception, not the rule, as it currently is set up.
That is easy to say if one has adequate income. If not, it becomes a choice between paying rent, buying food, going to the doctor, or if you had your way, educating one's child.
It is not society's responsibility to support one's existence. There are other, creative ways to live within one's means.
Our educational system is already decentralized in that there is substantial local control of school districts. The problem is not that the federal or even state government is overcontrolling education and failing to respond to change. These problems exist on the local level. School districts are not responsive enough to parents, and have lost sight of their primary goal which is educating students and preparing them academically for adult life. Parents do not realize how much control and influence they have, much of which is already codified in public law. They too readily just do what they are told by teachers and administrators, whether it is beneficial for their child or not. What we need instead is for parents to bring the homeschool co-op mentality to the public school system, so they have the input and control, while getting the resources, consistency, efficiency, and accountability of the public but local system.
They still are not decentralized enough, however. Burned out teachers are not going to be very receptive to little Johnny's particular INTP-adhd personality as much as his mother/father/neighbor would be.