>The primary function of state funded K-12 is childcare to enable two parents to work.
That's the PRIMARY function, eh?
That's the PRIMARY function, eh?
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.
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.
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?
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!)