Whatabout Kids' Education?

We were dining with friends, whose daughters are both in college. And the father opined as how kids shouldn't go to college until their mid twenties. And I agreed.

But, really, when was the last time we, the American people, thought about our kids' education? Other than making sure to buy a house in a good school district and then send the kids to a good college? 

And when was the last time that our noble rulers thought seriously about kids' education?

My potted history of US education is:

Aristotle: "Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man."

Jesuits: Ditto.

Shakespeare: This son of a glovemaker in England went to the local grammar school at Stratford on Avon where he learned, among other things, Latin. In those days kids started work at age eight unless they went to grammar school.

Tocqueville: He thought American education in the 1830s was "widespread and mediocre." Your average backwoodsman had "the Bible, an axe, and a file of newspapers."

Horace Mann: Main force of the common school movement in the 1830s. The idea was for the Transcendentalists to outflank the remaining Puritans and reeducate the Catholics. His system was influenced by the Germans.

Irish Catholics: First build the school, then the church, Horace Mann.

High schools: Universal secondary education began to be widespread after the National Education Association recommended twelve years of education, with the idea that every kid should be taught the same material in the same way. And basically prepare kids for a job.

John Dewey: Believed in education as "a social institution through which social reform can and should take place."

School Choice: Advanced by economist Milton Friedman in the 1950s, it centers around "vouchers" so that parents can send kids to the school of their choice. With gubmint money.

Mega high schools: In The American High School Today in 1959 Harvard President emeritus James B. Conant recommended mega high schools so they could offer more and varied programs.

Home schooling: Began in the 1960s as a pushback against compulsory gubmint education.

School busing: A 1971 Supreme Court allowed busing of school children to "diversify the racial makeup of schools."

A Nation at Risk: This 1983 report said that American schools were failing, so reform was needed.

Charter Schools: Schools within the gubmint school system that offer alternative educational methods outside the rigid rules of the standard schools.

No Child Left Behind: This Act in 2001 proposed national standards in education.

Bill Gates: High schools are too big.

Self-education: "Given tablets but no teachers, Ethiopian children educate themselves."

Common Core: Starting in 2010 a state effort to provide nationwide common education standards.

CRT and Equity: America and schools are racist; enough of grades and math already.

COVID School Closures: Close schools during a modest epidemic. Because safety and morbidly obese women teachers.

Most people will agree that this history adds up to a total cock-up on the education front that is Making Things Worse. 

All these experts have had their turn. Now it's my turn:

I propose that nearly all education reformers are Klueless Klots that don't have a Klue.

I propose that gubmint schools should properly be called "Government Child Custodial Facilities."

I propose an end to compulsory schooling.

I propose that the standard model of childhood education should be neighborhood mothers getting together to educate their children with tablets (see above) and the mothers that don't get with the program should be named and shamed and shunned by the other mothers.

I propose that after age 11, children should be forced to crawl over broken glass if they want to go to school.

I propose that employers should offer education opportunities, as the employers of apprentices did in the olden time.

I propose that the US should pass a constitutional amendment forbidding the federal government to fund or legislate about universities.

As you can see, I am a profound moderate when it comes to education. Merry Christmas!