I think people did want their children educated but they were too busy working 18 hour days and such. If every person places a pretty high priority on education as you say, wouldn't they go get it from whereever it is available?Chevalier Mal Fet wrote:Early to mid 1900's. You think before that, people did not want their children educated? That's strange since pretty much every person, parents, non-parents and children, in a bad school or no school area, whether it's an American ghetto, or the segregated south, or Afghanistan seem to always place a pretty high priority on education. You think education would have been provided to all, eventually equally, through any other mechanism than government? Through the market? Sheesh....neckbeard wrote:It wasn't superior, whenever that was, but maybe it's not lack of state what made it so no one bothered to learn to read.Chevalier Mal Fet wrote:ha, maybe one day you'll be an hero in their textbook. I'd love to hear your take on how education was superior when schools were few and far between, completely exclusionary and 90% of adults were functional illiterates,neckbeard wrote:putting government in charge of education whatcouldpossiblygowrong
You think what we have now is provided to all, equally? From here it looks like complete failure for anyone that can't afford private school or to live in the richest neighborhoods. At least everyone is Texas gets an equally bad education?
I asked what could possibly go wrong. You don't think there's any issue with putting politicians in charge of curriculum?
It says here that in Boston before Horace Mann invented public school there was 96% literacy (in Boston)
edit: I know you'll just make fun of the source, but...
http://mises.org/daily/1425#_edn7
The situation in America roughly parallels that in England. In 1650, male literacy in America was 60%. Between 1800 and 1840, literacy in the Northern States increased from 75% to 90%, and in Southern States from 60% to 81%. These increases transpired before the famous Common School Movement led by Horace Mann caught steam. Massachusetts had reached a level of 98% literacy in 1850. This occurred before the state's compulsory education law of 1852. Senator Edward Kennedy's office released a paper in the 1980s stating that literacy in Massachusetts was only 91%.[vii]