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Removing the central bureaucracy is a double edged sword. For every classroom you free to innovate, you also free a teacher to pan science, attack evolution, te
by criley2 11y ago
Removing the central bureaucracy is a double edged sword. For every classroom you free to innovate, you also free a teacher to pan science, attack evolution, teach bible and religion in science class, etc.
Many of us grew up in school districts prior to the Bush and Obama centralization regimes and quite literally were taught that Evolution is a Satanic lie by public (non-private non-religious) schools.
- jerf 11y agoInnovation is a double-edged sword in general. Doesn't mean we should stop. Besides, are we not discussing exactly a situation in which the central bureaucracy has overspecified an inferior education? Nothing about "panning science, attacking evolution, teaching the bible and religion" has anything to do with whether or not there is a central organization; one stray election and you'll get all those things coming out of the central organization too. The very topic of this discussion is that an inferior education technique is being mandated right now. The casual default presumption that the centrally-mandated education is perfect is already falsified by the evidence.
- WaxProlix 11y agoSo are you saying we could fix the mandate and that would be good, or that specifying a minimum basic to which all teaching should be done is wrong in general? Or some third thing?
- billbrown 11y agoThe trouble is that—as my teacher wife likes to say—once the door closes you can teach whatever you want, however you want. She says that in a positive way to dismiss some of the ridiculous expectations of the bureaucracy but I've seen plenty of teachers do troublesome things because of that.