This bizarre and historically unprecedented scenario where parents simultaneously must both work but be prosecuted for doing so will likely be a blip in history.
Where do you live? There are many, many places in the US where it is indeed usually the case. (Possibly depending on your definition of "far away")
(for the record: primary school encompasses what US calls elementary and middle schools here)
My very liberal definition of "far away" would probably be something like "more than 1.5km" (the distance I was going by foot to a swimming pool as a kid), more if we consider public transport and bikes too - though those of course won't necessarily be viable options everywhere and at every age.
Some of my fondest childhood memories involve conversations with peers from these walks. I think it's an incredible shame that I can't let my children do the same, even at 8, and even though my 8yo is miles more mature than I was at his age.
at one point my oldest was in a school that did not allow kids to go to school or go home on their own. so in the afternoon i had to go to the school and pick him up. they would not let him leave until i showed up. however they could not force me to accompany him in the morning. because, well, what were they going to do when the kid was at the school gate and i wasn't there?
And this is in L.A., home to probably the least-challenging weather in the country. We have entire generations of junior-high and high-school kids who are apparently too feeble to ride their bikes, walk, or take the bus to school. Pathetic.
Weather is a minor factor vs. the population-size/density/quality of a place like LA.
Just watch some of the George Floyd protest videos from LA to get a sense of what likely really concerns LA parents. No amount of snow, sleet, wind, and sub-zero temps can hold a candle to those apocalyptic scenes.
Nobody is advocating sending kids out into a riot. So that leaves... I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say probably 364.8 riot-free days a year suitable for playing or moving about outside.
You can just stay indoors when the weather forecast is bad. There's no way to keep all the riff-raff locked inside while your kid walks home from school. In a place like LA, there's a lot of riff-raff. Just because there's no active riot doesn't mean the riff-raff is gone, they're just not all in a frenzy showing their true colors simultaneously. They continue to exist, and continue to be a potential risk, at all times.
Are you wilfully ignoring the actual thread of context we're discussing? I was replying to your reply to the following:
> Just watch some of the George Floyd protest videos from LA to get a sense of what likely really concerns LA parents. No amount of snow, sleet, wind, and sub-zero temps can hold a candle to those apocalyptic scenes.
Good night.
In my county the kids are not permitted to walk or bike to the school; they can only take the bus or be driven (and they have to be picked up by a parent or someone on an approved list). I assume that stops when they're of driving age but I wouldn't be shocked if the 16-year-olds are allowed to drive but not to bike....
Though I admit I'm just making this up and I could be completely wrong. How common was it to mothers to work in the 60s, 50s, and before? Was state-funded K-12 as ubiquitous back then as it is now?
Granted, just one piece of anecdata from just one U. S. state. But without evidence to the contrary, I'm having a hard time picturing any adult in the process, parents or school employee, being content with uneducated ignoramuses as long as they get the pigs fed.
That's the PRIMARY function, eh?
If babysitting was the primary function, there are much cheaper and easier ways to achieve it.
Given that the vast majority of cost and effort is spent on the educational aspect, I would argue that is indeed the primary function.
Additionally, if you look to history, schooling originated long before the need for babysitting.
The initial argument for public education was civics- if you want a nation of competent and driven citizens, they need to be armed with a good, comprehensive education.
A lot changed in the Post-War era. Women entered the workforce, and the role of the public school has mutated to the point that many families depend upon it as the primary caregiver for non infant children (hence the complaints when the school week gets shortened from 5 days to 4).
Also you seem to believe that school being expensive somehow guarantees it’s primary purpose is education. Many districts spend that money incredibly inefficiently. We have lots of touchscreen devices and giant stadiums. And yet teachers are forced to provide their own basic school supplies for the kids every year. Ancient musical instruments failing in kids hands due to rot. It’s really not good out there.
Indeed, I am making a cost based case to define the ordering of goals.
Education, or even the wasteful pretext of education, is the primary driver of cost. Therefore, it is clearly the focus of our spending.
Education is also the primary driver of the structure and form of our schools.
If the primary goal was just daycare, they would look very different. California, for example, spent ~$24k/student in 2023. For that cost, you could pay for a home babysitter.
We could argue about whether the schooling system is sufficiently meeting those long term goals, but that doesn't mean they take a back seat to the immediate consequences of school closures.
If the pipes in your house burst right now, your immediate emergency would be to pretty much stop everything and stop your house from completely flooding.
That doesn't mean that the primary purpose of your life is a pipe-fixer.
I think you made the classic mistake of confusing urgency with importance.
> primary purpose of your life
In this thread, we're not talking about the primary purpose of one's life, we're talking about the primary purpose of school as it relates to parents. In that way, the pipes are analogous to the school and, as you said:
> If the pipes in your house burst right now, your immediate emergency would be to pretty much stop everything and stop your house from completely flooding.
Just like
> If every school were to close the immediate emergency would be that people would have no one to watch their kids.
Specifically because the schools are as important to watching kids as pipes are to moving and containing water.
The tl;dr of how it applies is tht industrialization mandates finding something for young people to do (that isn't working) in a way that previous eras did not. In the era of, say, sail, you could be a 14-year-old sailor. A 14-year-old in a factory was decided (over years and lessons paid in blood) to be not only counter-productive, but dangerous for the 14-year-old. We outlawed it. But that does cause the demographic problem: you can't have these young folks roaming free getting into trouble, so what do you do with them?
The hypothesis that forms is high school is less about education and more about containment (making sure, essentially, that we babysit / warehouse our young adults until they ripen enough to be productive industrial-society members).
Why should that be self-evident? What is wrong with kids 'roaming free'?
I might be wrong though. I haven’t completed my Cynicism 101 course yet.
(you're never gonna finish Cynicism 101 if you don't get your act together!)
There's an alternative, though. Instead of monitoring your child for the entire school day, the school will put your child in a room with all the other children of parents too busy to monitor them. They'll be given an iPad, Wi-Fi, access to a bathroom, and a reasonably nutritious meal. They will receive no formal education, but the staff will make sure they don't hurt themselves or anyone else. This will enable you to go to work. Your earnings will be $37,290 a year.
These are your only two options. The state requires you to choose one of them, or you'll go to jail. Also, if you choose the second option, your taxes won't go up next year.
Which would you choose? Which would people in your demographic choose?
They do this so high school—and nb many high schoolers can get themselves to school in the morning, so parents don't necessarily have to be home for that—can start earlier (no district has so many buses they can start all schools around the same time—they have to stagger them), to leave more time after school for sports practice and other extracurriculars (but really, for sports).
> If it started later, that time would be replaced with pre-school care/activities.
Even without ours being the way it is, that would still just mean more time in (typically paid) after-school care. The hours absolutely do not overlap well enough to provide convenience, only relief from part of the cost of childcare.
+ Sad that some downtrodden drones try to bury this sentiment instead of demanding better treatment.