Top Concerns of Sending Your Child to Public Schols

This article came to me via email. It is written by Kerry Beck of Curriculum Connections. (see end of newsletter) There are some really good points in it ! Many of the reasons are the reasons we don't send Shayna to school.

Top Concerns of Sending Your Child to Public School

I'd like to share with you the top reasons why you should not send your child to the government school.

Socialization

What a shock! Most people think that socialization is a top reason to send your child to the schools run by the government. They believe that the public school helps socialize your children. What do you have when you get a roomful of 10 year old boys? A room of fools! Let's face it, just having your child with a bunch of other kids does not socialize your children properly. Oh, it socializes them, but not with morals, character, integrity, honor, courage. The only place a child learns those attributes is from those who have walked before him, adults who have developed character in their own lives.

When your child attends public school, at any age, he learns to socialize by developing a new vocabulary (swear words), wearing new clothes (immodest at best), showing little or no respect for authority, developing a low work ethic, and so forth. If you want your child to mature in these ways, the public school is for you. My guess is you want to protect your children from this type of socializing.

Narrow-minded Education

Those that attend public schools receive a limited education, similar to a conveyor-belt. Everyone in first grade is taught the exact same concepts, pouring facts into the child-container. As your child moves along the conveyor belt, he receives the same education as everyone else. He studies from the same textbooks as everyone else, is tested the same as all other students, is graded based upon the same scale, regardless of individual talents, interests, goals and personal missions in life. Moving down the factory line, the product (your child) is assembled with certain parts (curriculum). All products (children) are fitted with the same parts (education) as everyone else. When the product completes station 12, he is stamped (diploma) as a finished product and sold to the job market. There is no room for educating your child at his own rate or spending more time on certain subject areas because he is talented in that area.

Each child in the public school must follow the same plan even if that plan does not pursue his own goals and missions in life. This may seem “normal” to you, but that is because you are probably a product of the conveyor- belt education system of the public schools.

On another note: the factory does provide much training in math & science, leaving literature & history (the subjects that develop “how to think”) behind. Its scope of education is very limited.

Inferior Academics

If you look at the exit test for eighth graders at the end of the nineteenth century, you would be amazed. Could you answer any of the following questions from the 1895 Final Exam for Eighth Grade?

• Define Case, Illustrate each Case.
• Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided.
• What is meant by the following: Alphabet, phonetic orthography, etymology, syllabication?
• Name and describe the following: Monrovia, Odessa, Denver, Manitoba, Hecla, Yukon, St. Helena, Juan Fermandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco.

These questions are beyond the scope of most adults today. The expectations in academics have been drastically lowered over the past one hundred years.

Although our children may be encouraged to memorize many facts about a subject, they are not able to “think” about the subject areas. The study of a particular subject area is limited.

Harvey Bluedorn, author of Teaching the Trivium, sums up the danger of depending on public schools for academic education: “Classroom teaching has the inevitable long-term effect of dumbing down the curriculum, reducing the method to minimums, and lowering the quality of results. So, specialized programs must be introduced.”

After studying the public school system, I was surprised to find out that most Americans receive an education historically set for the poor. That's right, our American government's public school provides an education that prepares people for a job. Historically, superior academics and thinking was available to the rich and middle-class. The poor received a public education so they could be productive in society and be prepared for a job as an adult. When your child attends public school today, he will receive just enough education to prepare him for a job. Remember, education is much more than job training.

Secular Priorities & Values

The curriculum of the public school follows the idea of relativism – there is no truth. Morals and character can not be taught because what is right for me may not be right for you. Although the school is not allowed to teach or encourage values, morals and priorities, it will definitely “teach” values to your children. Values & priorities will be encouraged by your child's teacher and the school environment, even in a subtle manner. Will your child's teacher have the same convictions and moral values that you as a parent have? When your child spends over seven hours a day with a stranger as John Gatto calls teachers, your child will absorb the stranger's values.

Rigid & Inflexible with Family Time

The public school environment does not prepare children for real life situations; it prepares them to spend most of their waking hours away from home at a job. The public school models time away from family in their daily & annual schedule. Most public schools are rigid in their expectations of children's attendance. In fact, the schools believe they know better than parents what your child needs. They do not believe that parents are experts about their own children, but strangers (teachers & administrators) are the experts. So, time with family is really not necessary. Schools have contributed to the break down of the family as much as other institutions in our society.


Consider these dangers as you choose the route your child will follow in his education. To learn more about the conveyor-belt method of education, read A Thomas Jefferson Education.

Kerry Beck
Owner of Curriculum Connection, has published books on approaches to homeschooling and other homeschooling topics. If you want to jump-start your homeschool, go to www.CurriculumConnection.net to read more articles about homeschooling .



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