Congrats Texas board of education...

[neckbeard]

putting government in charge of education whatcouldpossiblygowrong

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,

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.

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....

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?

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]

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

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?

But they do.... they teach their children everything they know, their trade, and will put them in any school, even if 'equally' bad, as you say below that is available - see Madrassahs in the Arab world, the bulk of which students go to for lack of any affordable publicly available education.

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)

No, it's not perfect, we should have a lot more national standardization in public schools in terms of general curriculum, including any effort - as the guy Helene quotes above says - to depoliticize the teachings of facts - literacy, math and science can be taught in a completely non-partisan way being wholly fact based. History and Literature are a little trickier but still a good textbook and teacher can center in on the facts and then provide narrative context in an even-handed way in the former case and provide a decent survey of literary movements while being somewhat sensitive to regional values. We should also have a lot more funding to provide the best materials, teachers and buildings to all students.

I do not accept this implied demonization of elected officials, no matter how many, particularly in this story, fit into that stereotype like a glove, it's a cynical ploy to not expect much and not participate, thus letting them off the hook - i.e. they are all crooks, etc... if these public officials treat education and other issues as a political football it's because we let them, we get the leaders we deserve. I think the most ironic thing is how much conservative state leaders rail against federal interference but they constantly defund their schools and never try to improve their systems because they know big brother will bail them out via earmarks, initiatives, etc..

I am not sure where you are citing that literacy factoid from, but that sounds surprising based on the time period.

[neckbeard]

I edited my post with a link to a better article I found; It has references.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

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]

Well yeah, because it's one biased libertarian source linking to another with no actual citation of this fact, and how it was arrived at. Literacy can be defined a variety of ways from barely functional to totally functional and who knows what group was surveyed and how to arrive at that number. Also the fact that the survey was done in Boston and is then compared to a study done in Massachusetts is intellectually suspect. I won't make fun of the factoid if you can provide a legit source for it and these bloggers didn't simply cherry pick whichever numbers best suited their argument, but as of now that factoid looks out of whack, and cherry picking seems to be exactly what they did.

[neckbeard]

And I should believe your numbers why?
There's links to 7 or 8 real sources at the bottom. I don't know what you want.

more from the smae article
While some people might wonder exactly what literacy entailed during the early Nineteenth Century, anecdotal evidence points to a highly educated and refined populace. In his book Separating School and State, Sheldon Richman gives a variety of examples of the sophisticated nature of America's readers. Thomas Paine's Common Sense sold 120,000 copies to a population of three million—the equivalent of ten million copies in the 1990s. Noah Webster's Spelling Bee sold five million copies to a population of less than twenty million in 1818. Walter Scott's novels sold the same number between 1813 and 1823—the equivalent of sixty million copies in the 1990s. James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans also sold millions of copies. Scott and Cooper are certainly not written on today's fourth-grade level. Travelers to America during the period such as Alexis de Tocqueville and Pierre du Pont were amazed at the education of Americans.[viii] The reading public of Victorian England is so famous that numerous books and college literature courses are devoted to the subject. In fact, England eventually passed a paper tax to quell a public the leaders felt was too smart.

[Iron Goldie]

We're all living in America
America
Ist wunderbar...

I always laugh when I hear this song. Its so terrible....

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

And I should believe your numbers why?
There's links to 7 or 8 real sources at the bottom. I don't know what you want.

more from the smae article
blahblah.

Those sources don't reference the original fact. They reference that the 'facts' quoted by one libertarian came from another libertarian's paper. Watch I can do it too:

In consistent polling, everyone agrees that George W. Bush was the worst president ever, and smelled bad. (1)



(1) Daily Kos

It's common knowledge that historically the increase in literacy accompanied first the invention of the printing press duh.... and then the formation of public schools and libraries. This guy claims the opposite because his motivation is to prove that government does everything wrong. I can't find anyone else using this factoid on the web which likely means it's false, out of context or has been discredited. When you find someone who does not have a political axe to grind citing where this fact came from, then maybe I'll give it some credence. The CIA world fact-book lists functional literacy in the US at 99%, do you think it was higher in the 1850's in Boston, Massachusetts or anywhere else?

You are doing a great job demonstrating the type of education that will be spewed forth from the Texas Board of Ed for the next however many years til they learn to walk upright and use tools over there. I can cite another source that says the same thing, it's enriched with truthiness!!!!!!!

[Iron Goldie]

hahaha, this is fucking great.

"“I reject the notion by the left of a constitutional separation of church and state,” said David Bradley, a conservative from Beaumont who works in real estate. “I have $1,000 for the charity of your choice if you can find it in the Constitution.”"

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

derp

You can send my 1,000 dollar bux to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, please.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Did hs and college graduation rates crash down from their startling libertarian non government peaks in the mid 1800's before the scope of this chart?

[father of lies]

We're all living in America
America
Ist wunderbar...

I always laugh when I hear this song. Its so terrible....

You have a pussy! I have a dickah! So vats de prrroblem?

[neckbeard]

And I should believe your numbers why?
There's links to 7 or 8 real sources at the bottom. I don't know what you want.

more from the smae article
blahblah.

Those sources don't reference the original fact. They reference that the 'facts' quoted by one libertarian came from another libertarian's paper.

You do this to everything you don't agree with. "It came for a source with an agenda opposite of mine, it can't possibly be true."

Did hs and college graduation rates crash down from their startling libertarian non government peaks in the mid 1800's before the scope of this chart?

Yeah, and if the chart when back to caveman times you could really see how important public schools are; Nobody could read back then!

Find me something that says

schools were few and far between, completely exclusionary and 90% of adults were functional illiterates

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

You do this to everything you don't agree with. "It came for a source with an agenda opposite of mine, it can't possibly be true."

You never have once quoted anything even within spitting distance of a legitimate source for anything you claim to be a fact, just libertarian hack sites. I swear you people are worse than scientologists.

Yeah, and if the chart when back to caveman times you could really see how important public schools are; Nobody could read back then!

Way to completely avoid the point. Education has improved, and is more accessible because of public education more people know more and achieve more than they did previously, thanks to the government. Is it a perfect system, no, is it by far better than any cockamamie alternative you might imagine - certainly.

Find me something that says

The 90% part was so obviously an exaggeration it didn't even occur to me that was what you were referring to as my facts. As to the other two components, yes schooling was unattainable to the majority of poor of all kinds, blacks, women, religious and other racial minorities and any number of other people who were systematically, or I'd say inherently, excluded from private education. This is an obvious fact, I don't need to cite it, because anyone with common sense and elementary knowledge of American history knows this is true.

[Gookstorm]

Do we need to cite sources that say that things fall to the ground? Because some shit is a bit too obvious to need citation. Lastly, what good is a citation if all someone will do is bash the source? Hardly a productive use of anyone's efforts in some conversations then.

[neckbeard]

You never have once quoted anything even within spitting distance of a legitimate source for anything you claim to be a fact, just libertarian hack sites.

Cremin, Lawrence A. 1951. The American Common School: An Historic Conception. NY: Columbia University. P. 17.
[ii] High, Jack, and Jerome Ellig. 1988. "The Private Supply of Education: Some Historical Evidence." In Tyler Cowen, ed. The Theory of Market Failure. Fairfax: George Mason University Press. P. 363.
[iii] West, E.G. 1970. "Resource Allocation and Growth in Early Nineteenth Century British Education." Economic History Review. 23: pp. 83–84.
[iv]High. 1988. Pp. 364–65.
[v] West, E.G. 1975. Education and the Industrial Revolution. NY: Harper & Row. P. 201.
[vi] West. E.G. 1967. "The Political Economy of American Public School Education." Journal of Law and Economics. (October): Pp. 127–28.
[vii] Richman, Sheldon. 1994. Separating School and State. Fairfax: Future of Freedom Foundation. P. 38.
[viii] Richman 1994. Pp. 38–39.
[ix] High. 1988. Pp. 367–69.

Way to completely avoid the point. Education has improved, and is more accessible because of public education more people know more and achieve more than they did previously, thanks to the government.

Way to do the correlation = causation thing, which was what I meant by this comment.

The 90% part was so obviously an exaggeration it didn't even occur to me that was what you were referring to as my facts. As to the other two components, yes schooling was unattainable to the majority of poor of all kinds, blacks, women, religious and other racial minorities and any number of other people who were systematically, or I'd say inherently, excluded from private education.

You mean like Jim Crow laws or something? Who was it made and enforced those again?

[neckbeard]

Lastly, what good is a citation if all someone will do is bash the source? Hardly a productive use of anyone's efforts in some conversations then.

Maybe someone else will get something out of it.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

[vii] Richman, Sheldon. 1994. Separating School and State. Fairfax: Future of Freedom Foundation. P. 38.
[viii] Richman 1994. Pp. 38–39.

This is the source that fact in question came from, its a work of advocacy by a political partisan, not a scholarly study. As to Devon's comment, you shouldn't have to cite for common sense/knowledge but if you state something counter intuitive as fact then you should produce a source, preferably one that isn't a political hack. If I want to defend a argument with a counter-intuitionist fact I would find the most 'clean' source possible to be convincing, not just cite someone so obviously biased trying to create a certain result because they are my ideological kinsman. That's not convincing, that's retarded.

Way to do the correlation = causation thing, which was what I meant by this comment.

Then please explain what other factors other than the increase in quantity and accessibility of public education have led to the across the board increase in literacy, and higher educational achievement. Please explain why federal college loan programs have prevented people from going to college. Please explain how less people are literate now that more people are taught to read.

You mean like Jim Crow laws or something? Who was it made and enforced those again?

People, individual people who happened to work in the government at the time. It's those kind of comments that make me feel like a cult deprogrammer everytime I argue with a libertologist. The government isn't a monster, it's not even an entity, you do understand that. You understand that the sons of Jim Crow advocates are the same ones who would love to see public schools abolished, that the reason they pushed for those laws was because government sponsored schools weren't enough like PRIVATE schools where they could exclude who they wanted, when.

[neckbeard]

This is the source that fact in question came from, its a work of advocacy by a political partisan, not a scholarly study. As to Devon's comment, you shouldn't have to cite for common sense/knowledge but if you state something counter intuitive as fact then you should produce a source, preferably one that isn't a political hack. If I want to defend a argument with a counter-intuitionist fact I would find the most 'clean' source possible to be convincing, not just cite someone so obviously biased trying to create a certain result because they are my ideological kinsman. That's not convincing, that's retarded.

So your OK with the rest of the facts and sources?

Then please explain what other factors other than the increase in quantity and accessibility of public education have led to the across the board increase in literacy, and higher educational achievement.

Here's one possible factor: people have more free time to learn, instead of spending every waking hour providing food and shelter for themselves and their family.

People, individual people who happened to work in the government at the time.

Yeah, they just happened to work in the government at the time and would have still had the power to exclude people from education if they worked somewhere else.

I'll go look up the sources to those sources later and you can dismiss them too.

[eyehatethehumanrace]

Today I saw this bumper decal on a car parked outside my work..

show them this, then

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

So your OK with the rest of the facts and sources?

Irrelevant, that was the fact I was questioning and you can only link it back to a non-scholarly biased source, I call bullshit.

Here's one possible factor: people have more free time to learn, instead of spending every waking hour providing food and shelter for themselves and their family.

Well gee, good thing that educational system just spontaneously popped into existence to accommodate them all - free market magic at work, I guess... I'm sure the government enforcing the eight hour work day and child labor laws had nothing to do with it either, because we were so much free before the government oppressed us by not allowing us and our children to work 20 hour days.

Yeah, they just happened to work in the government at the time and would have still had the power to exclude people from education if they worked somewhere else.

They specifically got into government so that they could impose their private will on others, in the absence of government they would have been more free to impose their private will on others. If the government didn't form schools than coalitions of private citizens, well the right kind of private citizens anyway would form schools.

The idea that less government equals more freedom is a dogma, you realize that, it has no basis in history or fact. In the absence of government, the will of the powerful will govern. Libertarianism is license to tyranny.

[Bored, Esq.]

Well gee, good thing that educational system just spontaneously popped into existence to accommodate them all

Hahaha....

[neckbeard]

The other sources aren't irrelevant. They say the same thing.

England's system of education was not completely "free" until 1870. However, literacy and attendance had been steadily climbing for hundreds of years. In 1640, male literacy in London was more than 50%, and more than 33% in the countryside. These rates were obtained under a privately administered fee-based educational system.

Cremin, Lawrence A. 1951. The American Common School: An Historic Conception. NY: Columbia University. P. 17.

By 1818, one of every fourteen people in the total population attended school for some period. Twice as many children attended school only ten years later. A Government Report of 1833 (criticized for underreporting attendance levels) found a 73% increase in the number of schooled children between 1818 and 1833.[ii] During 1833, 58% of attendees paid full fees, while only 27% received endowments for education.[iii]

[ii] High, Jack, and Jerome Ellig. 1988. "The Private Supply of Education: Some Historical Evidence." In Tyler Cowen, ed. The Theory of Market Failure. Fairfax: George Mason University Press. P. 363.
[iii] West, E.G. 1970. "Resource Allocation and Growth in Early Nineteenth Century British Education." Economic History Review. 23: pp. 83–84.

Moreover, it exceeds the figures of 1860 Germany and 1880 France where education was free and compulsory.[v] West argues that the goal of educating 100% of the population is unattainable. But if universal education means at least 90% attendance, then a private system of universal education had been achieved in England by 1860—a full ten years before education became "free."[vi]

[v] West, E.G. 1975. Education and the Industrial Revolution. NY: Harper & Row. P. 201.
[vi] West. E.G. 1967. "The Political Economy of American Public School Education." Journal of Law and Economics. (October): Pp. 127–28.

There's plent more out there. I just googled around for "literacy colonial america" or something innocuous like that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_ ... n_Colonies
Education in the Thirteen Colonies during the 17th and 18th centuries varied considerably depending on one's location, race, gender, and social class. Basic education in literacy and numeracy was widely available, especially to whites residing in the northern and middle colonies, and the literacy rate was relatively high. Educational opportunities were much sparser in the rural South.

These are pretty good, but all the links are dead.
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=361434

http://catalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebreco ... s+per+page

Cremin was a professor at Columbia University. His research indicated
that literacy among adult white males was 70 to 100 percent in
Colonial America versus 48 to 74 percent in England.

Here's a whole book.
Learning to Read and Write in Colonial America

I'm pretty confident that literacy was steadily climbing since writing came out.

What are we arguing about again? Oh yeah my point is it's basically illegal to not send your kids to learn some completely false history.

i don't know if I can trust any research on education from public academia . They have an agenda: to keep their jobs.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

What are we arguing about again? Oh yeah my point is it's basically illegal to not send your kids to learn some completely false history.

i don't know if I can trust any research on education from public academia . They have an agenda: to keep their jobs.

Your original point was that Texas's fucktarded new standards were the result of too much government interference, in this case being from the state government. However if such standards were nationalized, ie if there were more government interference, they would have been of higher quality, and not tainted by regional religious nuts. Of course, if there was no public school system, there wouldn't even be a chance for public education for most of the kids in Texas anyway, so the conversation would be irrelevant.

The disputed facts were that there was 98% literacy in Massachusetts in 1850 and that more generally public education has failed where private education succeeded i.e. there was more literacy in 1850 then at the time of Kennedy's report. I said both were bunk an none of your citations below seem to speak to that specific fact at all or if anything contradict your points.

I don't doubt that literacy has been 'gradually climbing' since the invention of the printing press as that is just as much common sense as literacy continuing to climb in those areas with publicly administered government funded school systems.

You quote literacy at 33-50% in the UK in 1870, your second quote is even worse point out that education grew from 1 in 14 to 2 in 14 on the way to maybe 3 in 14 ( a 73% increase!!! from nothing!!!!) by 1833. The third quote seems to be missing a good portion of it's context, the fourth quote makes my point, as does the fifth speaking to 70% of adult white males only, that's a category that doesn't count non-white males, or y'know females of any kind.

Do you have anything that demonstrates that in 1870s the people, by which I mean all living human beings had literacy rates anywhere near the 90-99% we have today? No, you don't. Would you deny at least that educational opportunities through the public school system and community and state colleges, are more available to everyone regardless of race, gender, creed, and personal wealth then they were in the 1850s? That those opportunities would not be available in the absence of the public school system?

[Gookstorm]

i don't know if I can trust any research on education from public academia . They have an agenda: to keep their jobs.

Government and academia make it difficult to fire people partly for this reason - to avoid bullshit political reasons from affecting someone from doing their job properly. It's not like private industry think tanks are stewards of infallible knowledge either. It winds up being the interpretation of the people to judge the validity of sources.

Oh yeah my point is it's basically illegal to not send your kids to learn some completely false history.

I think this isn't as big of an issue to me so much as the greater issue that the current American lifestyle makes it impossible for families to earn a reasonable living while educating their children the best possible. If your child succeeds in the current public education system, they would have almost certainly been fine without needing the support of taxpayer dollars (upward mobility from education is grossly, grossly overestimated by statistics IMO - the metrics I need to prove my point do not exist but bits and pieces of other stats exist that lead me to believe this is true).

Considering one of the primary goals of the public education system was to educate and enrich the lives of those that historically didn't get an education, it's done that with mixed results. The problem is that the middle class in America has mostly disappeared since the 60s and the rich with their exclusionary principles and habits combined with their enormous influence upon both public and private policies have ruined everything when the founding forefathers' greatest belief was that the economic elite should be able to guide the US. In this respect, I believe the great experiment that is the US is a complete, total failure ruined by total faith that the upper classes will enact policies that do anything but benefit themselves - whether it's intentional or totally unintentional is of no matter to this judgment.

Lastly, I think that whether enrolling your child in public education as mandate is up to the laws of a state. I'm not sure if that's a federal or state jurisdiction.

[neckbeard]

Your original point was that Texas's fucktarded new standards were the result of too much government interference, in this case being from the state government. However if such standards were nationalized, ie if there were more government interference, they would have been of higher quality

Why do you think this?

Do you have anything that demonstrates that in 1870s the people, by which I mean all living human beings had literacy rates anywhere near the 90-99% we have today? No, you don't

No, I don't. I don't pretend to. It's not important to my point whether it was 99, 90, 80. It was a lot higher than I expected and you claimed (10) and steadily rising. It was high and rising. Even the oppressed minorities where somewhat going to school and reading. Do you think this would start going back down or stagnate the more oppression is removed from them?

We are in the same relative situation now: Rich, White kids get way better education and go on to be wealthy and minorities go through the motions as long as they can stand and then work for the white kids for pennies.

Would you deny at least that educational opportunities through the public school system and community and state colleges, are more available to everyone regardless of race, gender, creed, and personal wealth then they were in the 1850s?

Of course availability went up, but they we're already going up and would have continued to go up with or without the state... I'll have to qualify this with an all things being equal, but as gookstorm says below, the upper/political class have done an great job dicking over the poor.

It's not like private industry think tanks are stewards of infallible knowledge either. It winds up being the interpretation of the people to judge the validity of sources.

I agree. Judge the research on it's merits, methods, etc

I think this isn't as big of an issue to me so much as the greater issue that the current American lifestyle makes it impossible for families to earn a reasonable living while educating their children the best possible. If your child succeeds in the current public education system, they would have almost certainly been fine without needing the support of taxpayer dollars (upward mobility from education is grossly, grossly overestimated by statistics IMO - the metrics I need to prove my point do not exist but bits and pieces of other stats exist that lead me to believe this is true).

This is also true. We probably disagree on how this happened and how to fix it.

Considering one of the primary goals of the public education system was to educate and enrich the lives of those that historically didn't get an education, it's done that with mixed results.

There's a really great Horace Mann quote about this that I can't find right now. Dang it.

Lastly, I think that whether enrolling your child in public education as mandate is up to the laws of a state. I'm not sure if that's a federal or state jurisdiction.

Having a hard time parsing these sentences, but in CA at least you must go to school and for a while they we're making it really hard on home and private schools.

It's awkward to craft a long post on this board. I should have dumped this all into vim to type it up.

[neckbeard]

found that quote.

Born in Franklin, Massachusetts in 1797, he was elected to the state legislature in 1827. Ten years later, he was appointed secretary of the newly created Board of Education, a job for which he initially had little passion. But in 1843, Mann visited the German kingdom of Prussia and observed its schools. What he found in the Prussian system is best expressed by Wikipedia:

“Seeking to replace the controlling functions of the local aristocracy, the Prussian court attempted to instill social obedience in the citizens through indoctrination. Every individual had to become convinced, in the core of his being, that the King was just, his decisions always right, and the need for obedience paramount.”

Mann too wished to create an unquestioningly obediant population, ever subservient to the whims of the State. As he put it: “We who are engaged in the sacred cause of education are entitled to look upon all parents as having given hostages to our cause.”

Also: “As the German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte, a key influence on the system, said, ‘If you want to influence [the student] at all, you must do more than merely talk to him; you must fashion him, and fashion him in such a way that he simply cannot will otherwise than what you wish him to will.’”
http://c4ss.org/content/1946