The Importance Of Public Education

Register to read the introduction… Yet literacy rates before then, before compulsory public schooling, are estimated to be around 90% to 98%. Men such as Abraham Lincoln, Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain), and Frederick Douglass were able to educate themselves and move on to contribute greatly to society without the benefit of public education in any form, as did most Americans in that era(Sowell, Inside 18-24,27). In fact, in many countries today, countries such as Switzerland, where it is estimated that only 23% of its citizens attend public high school, have the highest income per capita in the world and more scholarly individuals in comparison to other countries. This is generally attributed to the lack of public education (Murray Real 33,34). The same show similar literacy rates to that of early America, where little was available in the way of public …show more content…
In the 21st century the average high school graduate can name only 5 presidents, cannot do basic algebra, is not able locate Iraq on a globe, cannot name the capital of more than 8 states, and does not know the difference between their, there and they're (Murray Real 12-14). Most corporations have remedial educational programs in place for their college educated employees who have been bucked up through the system (Sowell. Inside 22). The plans laid over 100 years ago have well come to pass and we are now churning out hundreds of thousands of functionally illiterate students each year, bent on entering the corporate work force. Suited for nothing else, having not an inkling of enterprise, not capable of independent thought, trained to be dependent on authority, not able to take personal responsibility, these victims of public education have little other option but to embrace the corporate structure, which is exactly what they have been programmed to do, (Gatto InfoWars …show more content…
The answer takes us back to the turn of the last century. Prior to World War I, President Woodrow Wilson, while giving a speech to a large group of capitalist tycoons, captains of industry, the movers and shakers of their time, and shapers of ours, stated publicly that educational policy would be henceforth geared toward creating a system of education that would produce workers who did not question authority, who were of a diminished mental capacity, and who excelled in mindless, mundane tasks, reserving real education for only a small elite. Every President since, with few exceptions, has fallen in line with this policy (Iserbyt Deliberate 19-26, 92-94). Public education was designed specifically to diminish a student's capacity for critical thinking, to cause illiteracy, to stifle creativity, discourage a desire to learn, and to stamp out the spirit of independence, as such, may lead to undesired outcomes in the agenda for, what Wilson called, the New Age, (Iserbyt, Sovereign Pt5,