It's for the children.

As most that read my crap will attest, I am an education advocate. Not that I agree or approve of our current public education system; I do push hard for self education and in the cases of lil'uns, homeschooling.

Here is just another example of WHY. (While I haven't personal experience in Memphis schools, my understanding is that its pretty bad when it does work. Seeing the current history of schooling standards, I haven't any doubt.)

It's all about the children, right?
NOT.

It's all about that almighty fucking dollar, and has been for a LONG time. Dewey, that Satan inspired socialist of the early 1900's had much to do with how perverted and corrupt our current scheme is. And Scheme it is. There is not one legitimate purpose of our current system other than indoctrination into a socialist society. Our testing scores in relation to some (supposed) "Third World" countries is atrocious. The fact that our current system was truly established to educate (just enough) future factory workers of the industrial revolution, indicates that the system was designed with political intent SPECIFICALLY. And you can see it in some of the early textbooks of that time. Where stated intent is to provide information for the technician, BUT NEVER THE FOUNDATION of said technology.

If you understand nothing but one key concept, then you haven't the foundations for rational thoughts, NO MATTER HOW INTELLIGENT YOU ARE. Our founders were NOT keyed and trained pigeons, they were quite educated in a variety of subjects. Not all were even formally educated at all except through church founded educations. The classic education of the time, The Trivium and the Quadrivium didn't make it so you would be able to be a carriage maker or cooper-smith, or even a blacksmith. Nope, but they gave you the foundation that you could LEARN those skills quickly, without having to have formal training OR CERTIFICATION.(another of my pet-peeves.) Those classic education techniques were what led to the likes of Issac Newton, Bernoulli, Tesla, etc. They gave you the foundations to understand the world around you, question it, figure out if your questions had merit, and come up with new orders if they didn't.

Does our education system do that? Or does it teach you to 'go along to get along' and 'don't question your betters(masters)'

Personally I say the latter. Good thing I had parents and grandparents that were better educated than that, that were able to instill in me a sense of curiosity and pessimism.

Now, this doesn't apply to private schools (in general) or Catholic schools. The first should be taken on a case by case basis. The latter still use the older techniques (even though I still don't abide the forced religion part of it. Different subject but relevant to this point)and still offer courses that others have long abandoned due to fashion. (Latin etch)
But those schools are not PUBLIC by any means. If my father had been Catholic, I am certain that I would have attended one. He wasn't and the point is moot. None of that fixes what we currently have.
(((((Just for fun: For a test of your knowledge, current and historical Read this. See if you catch the twists.
When you are done, read this and see what you missed. Won't lie, I missed a good share.))))))

And yet again, I find myself saying the same damned thing. Let the shit fail so we can rebuild. It is too big to kill, it has to devour itself or become consumed by its own poison.
That applies to our education system (a part of the next one) Our Governments (State all the way up to Federal) Our economy, and in some ways, our pride.

Yes, I said 'our pride'. Our pride is what lead us here, and our pride is what holds us here. IN MY OPINION. Until we fess up, AS A NATION, that we are fucked into a stalemate of stupidity, we are never going to be able to move forward. This country needs to re-find its backbone and start using that and not some inflated pride that is based upon history only. Yes, history is important but if you can't back up that history with solid flesh in the present, you are just another history lesson on the books. (and part of me feels that is all this country is now, just like Rome and Persia and the Ottoman Empire. History lessons)