Ultimate education reform article list & video list. Problems with public education/schools, & how to fix them.

Part 1 will show the problems. Part 2 shows some ideas for solutions.

The video below is the most important one here, condensing almost all of the problems and solutions into a single 45 minute talk.

Summary: government schools waste time teaching concepts that have little real application for most people, and do so inefficiently with cookie-cutter style collectivized memorizing for tests.
For the most part, government schools do little to nothing to teach actual life-skills, such as growing a garden, fixing machinery, balancing a checkbook or making a healthy meal, or organizing and leading groups,  resolving conflicts nonviolently, and so on and so forth.
They certainly don't teach people logic, how to think for themselves .


Substance to back this summary up are in the videos and articles listed below.

Articles to read and additional resources:

LewRockwell.com on schools
LewRockWell.com on education

Unplugged Mom

School Sucks project

Laurette Lynn

HSLDA

John Taylor Gatto

Fixing Our Local Schools

Seven Ways School Has Imprisoned Your Mind

How Schooling Leads to War

The Schools Are Becoming Prisons

How to Control Society: Education and “National Security”

The Horrors of Public Education

Anti-Authoritarian Personalities & Standard Schools

The Case Against Public School

How Stupid Are High School Students?

Why Public Schools Don’t Teach Critical Thinking — Part 1 (Huffington Post)

Are Our High School Students Dumb? Are Our High Schools Disastrous?

How America Outlawed Adolescence

America's Public Schools Are Prisons

Pavlovian classical conditioning in school

A warning to U.S. about ‘educational authoritarianism’ — from a Chinese scholar (Washington Post)

"Children Are Not Second Class Citizens": Can Parents Stop Public Schools from Treating Their Children Like Guinea Pigs?


Psychology today:

The Danger of Back to School

Schools Are Good for Showing Off, Not for Learning

“Why Don’t Students Like School?” Well, Duhhhh…

Militarism (Narcissism-in-uniform) Stinks by whoever lives it!


Part 1:

Major problems with government/state schooling:

(The relevant part below starts at 50:51. The direct part about school ends at about 1:02:48.)

TED/TEDx Talks:

Are schools prisons, plus student's rights:

If you prefer to read the Rutherford institute's statements about school:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=School+site%3Awww.rutherford.org&atb=v86-4__&ia=web


Law firms to contact for help:

Rutherford Institute law firm

American Civil Liberties Union

Texas Appleseed law firm

Texas School Discipline Lab

Part 2: Solutions:

There is some talk about making public education better. But the real problem is HOW do we make education better?

Ideally, we'd have home-education for everyone. But, if that is not viably possible, then have school choice combined with charter schools, with maybe a few conditions to receive funding such as respecting student's rights, having a secular curriculum, teaching basic values and principles, and so on and so forth. 

That would force competition becuase now for schools to receive students and funding, they must perform well. A school can't hold a monopoly over a rotting ghetto just becuase of geography (which I find to be terribly unfair to the poor); the kids in that ghetto have an option to go to the same school with the kids from the snobby top-upper-middle class kids in the nice part of town that give a hoot about successful, efficient teaching that truly prepares kids for the future.

Along with this, offer more vocational and apprenticeship types of problems and look at on-the-job training as an alternative to inadequate Jack-of-all trades (more like a Master-of-nothing) style to teaching, which is shown to not work.

Yes, this can cost some money in the short term, particularly with transportation. 

But what will cost more money in the long term? Kids today being apathetic about learning becuase they're made to memorize minutia that has little to no real-life application to the extent that they learn very little that will be useful to their futures, and a lot of potential that these people had when they were little kids is wasted, plus a culture of ignorance, anti-intellectualism and apathy towards real philosophy, vaules, and principles. Along with that, an ignorant society that sorely lacks creativity, intellect and deep critical thinking.

Also, be sure to pay teachers fairly for what they do, and encourage freedom to experiment with teaching styles and allow teachers to individualize (such as having a kid read a book that they are interested in and doing work that is on their level and at their pace).

Encourage that people send their kids to schools that follow the Montessori model, which solves many of these problems.

Ron Paul curriculum:

http://ronpaulcurriculum.com/ 

http://ronpaulhomeschool.com/