And what was required to be functional in historic societies (say prior to the last 50-200 years[EDIT: 0]) was no literacy, no history, no mathematics, no basic economics, no civics (in the sense of understanding the theory, not the practice).
For the vast majority of human history we lived much, much simpler lives in many ways. Now, you need basic literacy and numeracy to be able to contribute to any non-manual-labor jobs. And even then, you need numeracy to manage your own finances or risk being taken advantage of.
What's required of the modern adult in the West is not a level of education that can be provided solely by two parents to more than two to three children (and that'd be pushing it). Instead, they rely on external resources (texts, videos, tutors, like minded parents) along with their own capabilities of education and instruction.
[EDIT: 0] Because the future isn't distributed evenly. But I should've specified further back than I did.
Even in a situation where the world requires a new solution to education, the burden of proof in terms of a particular solution's efficacy lies not with the old approach but the new.
That is to say, public education needs to demonstrate how it is objectively better suited than historic methods of education.
https://nces.ed.gov/NAAL/lit_history.asp
We had poor literacy, we introduced public education, literacy improved.
One major advantage of public education is breaking a particular cycle that would occur without it for many people. If you're uneducated or undereducated you are not in a position to educate your own children. You need a school or a tutor to help. Without that, your children are likely going to end up similarly undereducated.
Public schools are a democratizing factor that can significantly reduce inequality in education, and consequently inequality in life outcomes (as measured by financial and other success).
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/06/illiteracy-rate_n_3...
>Public schools are a democratizing factor
That's true, everyone get's an equally poor education.
You can argue all you want about current school systems, but I think we can all agree that it's far, far, far better that everyone receive a baseline level of education, regardless of family background, than the way things were before.
This view of education, however, is not reflected either socially or in legislative reality when it comes to America education in general.
The reason why public education became wide spread starting in the middle of the 19th century was the industrial revolution and the need for a more educated work force. Prior to that, an economy primarily devoted to subsistence farming, can can get by with an uneducated work force as it had for thousands of years. Suddenly with mechanization, you actually needed people that could do math.
Today, in the first part of the 21st century, with automation, and wealth inequality, the efficacy of education as the great leveler is clear by pretty much every economic study. In light of this, it doesn't make sense to go back to a hodgepodge curricula at best.
Second, and perhaps most important, in the 19th century and before you had women whose jobs were to stay home and raise children to the ripe age of 12, at which point if they were a boy, they'd start working with their father in the fields until the they reached 17 at which point they'd marry the 15 year old girl from down the road and start a new farm.
Today, 60% of the households in the United States are dual income, and it's been about this high since the 1990s.[0] the reason for that are many, including the growth of secondary education among women who don't want to stay home all day, to the harsh reality that it's hard for most people to make do with a single income.
Let's not pussy foot around this. One of the modern roles of public education is child care, albeit crappy child care because it starts at 8am and ends at 3pm, thus leaving late afternoons a problem for dual income families.
So let's be honest here. If you abolished public education for homeschooling, you're cutting household income in half, and getting a lower quality educational product, because most people can't adequately educate their children both from a curricula and by a methodological viewpoint.
And while you haven't brought it up, going to a completely private educational system won't work either because quite frankly, most people can't afford to pay the equivalent of buying a car every year per child. Again, we tried this as society in the 18th and 19th centuries. It didn't work.
We don't need to repeal the 20th Century. We already had the 18th and the 19th. They sucked.
[0] http://www.pewresearch.org/ft_dual-income-households-1960-20...
You don't even believe this.
Your point is accurate re: historical perspective, but don't you think you have to take that in context? From a historical perspective, children have been brutally exploited, especially from the poor and middle-class.
It does get quite amazing, doesn't it. And, thank you. :-S
Rational arguments require comparisons, and if we narrow the scope of comparison to the repetitively new era and scope (american public education) then we ignore the preponderance of evidence from human history.
I point this out because the premise of your argument assumes that state run public education is the default solution, and that home, or 'alternative' schooling is in the position of needing to prove why it is superior, when in fact, the situation is exactly reversed. It is public education which needs to prove empirically, why it is intrinsically better than the traditional forms of education.