Archive for March 25th, 2009

Today I heard someone — who works in the schools, I will say no more — say that our public schools are not for education but for “government indoctrination.”

I just smiled and shrugged. What could I say? You can’t get into politically-focused discussions at work. But now, having come home, and thought about it, I think I can usefully comment here.

The task undertaken at the public school is a serious one, and not something that just anyone could do with a few bucks and a college degree.  Most of the class time, at least in elementary school, appears to me to be focused on reading, writing and math skills. Certainly there are other activities, but the idea that the goal of the school is political indoctrination is ridiculous. The goal of the school is literacy and numeracy, and since the No Child Left Behind act, the management doesn’t have time to think of much else.

Political indoctrination, when it is practiced on America’s young people, is usually performed by the parents. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just nature taking its course. If the parents are doing their job, there’s nothing the school will be able to say to divert the children’s loyalty.  If not, the children are already like the proverbial “reed shaken by the wind” and to tell the truth the school will probably be their next best — and only — source of credible information about life. Outside of that, there’s just their peers and Madison Avenue.

Our schools deserve a little credit here. Let’s not suggest that the old model, in which people who couldn’t pay for tutoring were illiterate, would be an improvment for anybody.