[lbo-talk] Ravitch Warns Obama on Education Policy: 'Change CourseBefore it is Too Late'

Eric Beck ersatzdog at gmail.com
Wed Jun 23 13:34:11 PDT 2010


On Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 2:49 PM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:


> Who among us is not a product of such a system?
>
> I'll start: me, public primary and secondary, elite private college, "public
> Ivy" grad school. Of the three, the elite private was best.

Yup. My Catholic educations were by far the best, and I don't think the public ones were that terrible.

But to me approaching it in this way, of proclaiming that you managed to emerge from the education system, has a distinctly grumpy ring: if it was good enough for me, it's good enough for kids today.

The public
> primary and secondary was the worst, but despite that, I'd still prefer that
> to some sort of "unschooling," which just strikes me as some Rousseau-ish
> fantasy about the development of the primal self.

If you think I'm calling for the destruction of the educational system and a return to our true natures, I've communicated badly.


> If I had $28,000 a year,
> I'd love to send my kid to St Ann's. Elite private quality for all!

Maybe a good place to start with education reform would be to get rid of spurious notions equality, even those that invert leftist dogma.



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