Jews and public schools

[Ed Darrell]

In a message dated 97-08-20 11:43:41 EDT, JMHACLJ at AOL.COM writes:

<< Pamela Harris wrote:

 << The sense of belonging that public education can provide is more valuable
 to children who might otherwise experience some insecurity about their full
 membership in the larger political community than it is to children who take
 that membership for granted.   >>

Jim Henderson wrote:

<< Perhaps, then, home and private schooling should be outlawed for the
 injurious effects worked on minority populations? >>

The fact that public education has an important role and/or provides value to
our culture and/or society does not suggest that home schooling is injurious
to those who are not home schooled.  Our earlier discussion centered on
whether there is a right to home school, and a right to home school with the
government monies earmarked otherwise for public education.

Abraham Lincoln is reputed to have said that it is impossible to make a short
man tall by cutting off the legs of a giant.  Private and home schools handle
about 10 percent of the education chores in the U.S.  They perform valuable
service for those kids who attend -- but the purposes of these non-public
schools are not all parallel to the purposes of the public schools.  For some
of those purposes -- particularly for the purpose of providing free education
to those otherwise unable to afford it -- there is not now a viable
alternative to the public schools.  Cutting off the financial legs of the
public school system doesn't alter the structural differences in non-public
schools that make them attractive as vendors of education -- it is often the
same factors that make these schools attractive that limit their ability to
absorb all the public school functions.

So long as private and home schools provide at least a good quality education
at little drain of resources from the public schools, I would argue that they
are helpful.  Concern for maintaining public schools should not be
interpreted as animosity toward private or home schools, anymore than support
for private schooling should be interpreted as animosity to the idea of
public schools.  Should it?

Ed Darrell
Duncanville, Texas