Sweetums wrote:
I personally see nothing wrong with either private school or homeschooling, provided that the teachers are competent and the curriculum is rigorous. Although this is merely tangential to my point, the Vatican is a-ok with evolution and a figurative reading of Genesis.
True, but that's a pretty big "provided".
Secondly, the religious aspect is ridiculously problematic. While the Vatican might be ok with evolution, plenty of protestant churches aren't. Muslim schools can be hugely difficult depending on their interpretation of the koran. Some Muslims think biology and art classes should be forbidden, and they refuse for their kids to attend them. And if we saying's ok for Muslims and Christians and Jews to have their kids in private religious schools, where does "religious" stop? Zarastroian? Scientology? I think religious schools are almost inherently problematic, since their whole reason for being is that they have some theological angle on a lot of the subjects.
And then you have the fact that you'll have some Jewish (or Muslims, w/e) kids that will grow up in Jewish families and be at a Jewish school with Jewish kids where they'll be taught Jewish religion, etc... I don't think it's conducive to a homogeneous and tolerant society. And you can replace "Jewish" by "Muslim" or "Protestant", or even "Wealthy".
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In my opinion, a rigid adherence to a set curriculum without taking into consideration the needs and abilities of students engenders a kind of mediocrity that doesn't meet the needs of the gifted and can be too taxing for those who need extra help. Minimum requirements? Sure, don't really have anything against those.
Of course. I didn't mean that teaching should be ridiculously rigid and should never make allowances for the abilities of the students. I'm all for extra classes for kids that struggle, or for advanced courses for those that do well. I was referring to the content of the curriculum, more than to the structure/organisational aspect.
In France, the system of education is pretty rigid. It used to be said that the Minister for Education could, at any given point in the day, look at his watch and know exactly what passage of Moliere every kid in France was reading at that particular moment. That's obviously a bit extreme, but as a approach it's less problematic than what we have in the UK (and, from what I gather, the US) at the moment.
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I'm not against regulation to ensure a basic level of education, but I certainly don't see why the state needs to intrude to such a degree.
Because of standards. It doesn't have to be "the state", it can be your "educational board" or whatever. But I'm not sure how you ensure standards without some forms of inspection and top-down curriculum.