The Uneducated American

Re:The Uneducated American by mdakin on Sunday October 11, 2009 @05:56PM (#875351)

I'd argue that individual freedom led to American prosperity, and individuals' choice to partake in education was merely a consequence of a free society.

You could argue that but it is wrong (well, at least the education-specific bit). Mandatory education in America traces back to the culture (in general) and the enacted legislation (in particular) of the Puritan settlers of New England. The Puritans believed in universal literacy so that everyone could read scripture. They passed laws mandating child literacy and required towns to hire teachers to teach the children. This was all mandated and required by the government and in some sense that can be construed taking choice AWAY from individuals rather than giving choice to them. At the time this system and these requirements were unique in the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puritan#Education

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Re:The Uneducated American by tokenadult on Sunday October 11, 2009 @06:36PM (#875427)

Compulsory school attendance (as contrasted with tax-supported provision of schools) came later in American history. And the history of the colonies where Puritans were not the majority was also different. But Americans in general cherished literacy, and got that without much school attendance. When Horace Mann finally made school attendance compulsory in the modern sense in the 1850s in Massachusetts, he reported in his Common School Journal that more than 90 percent of the inhabitants of Massachusetts were literate. Earlier, Thomas Jefferson wrote, "Is it a right or a duty in society to take care of their infant members in opposition to the will of the parent? . . . It is better to tolerate the rare instance of a parent refusing to let his child be educated, than to shock the common feelings and ideas by the forcible asportation and education of the infant against the will of the father. What is proposed here is to remove the objection of expense, by offering education gratis . . ."

Letter of Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Cabell, September 9, 1817, reprinted in Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Memorial Edition 1904) volume 17, page 423.

http://learninfreedom.org/Founders_free.html

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Re:The Uneducated American by mdakin on Sunday October 11, 2009 @07:12PM (#875495)

My point is that education/literacy in America is not something that magically emerged on its own but is something that was mandated by the earliest settlers. These particular settlers, regardless of number/geographic footprint, exert great cultural influence up until this very day. As time went on their meme spread out and mutated, and we have what we have now which is universal public education.

Compulsory school attendance seems like a different question, and more like an implementation detail to me. At least today school attendance is not compulsory if the parents arrange for the child to be educated up to the currently mandated educational standards. (i.e. Homeschooling is legal.)

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Re:The Uneducated American by tokenadult on Sunday October 11, 2009 @08:36PM (#875626)

And my friendly disagreement is that literacy among American colonists was something more generally sought than compelled, especially if we keep all the colonies and not just the Puritan colonies of New England in view. (My ancestors who arrived in America the earliest were New England Puritans, and they and others of my ancestors were literate before they left Europe. I have books in the German language at home that have been owned by family members since they were published in the 1600s.)

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Re:The Uneducated American by mdakin on Sunday October 11, 2009 @09:43PM (#875708)

I think most people value education and generally seek it without compulsion (then and now). The idea of codifying the education requirements as law (then and now) directly serves that small fraction of people who would not have found education on their own otherwise. (Indirectly it serves us all because it saves us from trouble uneducated people end up placing on society.) I believe that the essential elimination of that small fraction of the uneducated likely would not have happened without the codification of educational requirements (as law), but that's a point we can't really prove one way or another. And perhaps that unprovable point is the root of whatever friendly disagreement you and I might have?

(It might be possible to do a comparative study of countries/cultures which have codified educational requirements vs. ones that don't-- comparing basic literacy rates to get some insight into this in the general case. It could be very tricky to factor out economics though. I know what I suspect the results would indicate. But I've not the time to do the study.)

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Re:The Uneducated American by tokenadult on Sunday October 11, 2009 @11:32PM (#875907)

It might be possible to do a comparative study of countries/cultures which have codified educational requirements vs. ones that don't

Singapore is a good example in this regard. Its compulsory school attendance law is still less than two decades old.

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Re:The Uneducated American by krschultz on Sunday October 11, 2009 @06:47PM (#875451)

But the Puritans were a minority in early America. The economic heart of early America is the Cheseapeake and south, and there was not much public education there. It wasn't until the 1830s that it became common for some primary schooling in the south, and even then it was only 1-2 years for basic literacy and arithmetic. Only the richest went to academies or seminaries (in the original meaning of the word). Literacy became much more common by the mid 1800s. Not sure when near universal literacy took place but I'd say 19th century over 18th for sure.

Wide spread college attendance is really only in the 2nd half of the 20th century.

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Re:The Uneducated American by mistermann on Monday October 12, 2009 @01:24AM (#876092)

There's a big difference between mandatory education, up to the level of learning how to read, and college education, as Krugman is speaking of.

I also believe America's success came from its freedom (and perhaps more so just the idea of freedom), and the culture and attitude (optimism, can do anything attitude) that resulted from that, that made it such a successful country.

Not to mention they stole tons of technology from Europe, and didn't get ravaged in WW2.

In my opinion, what has led to the "downfall" of America, is about 10-15 years of, in my opinion, decidedly unstrategic thinking on the part of manufacturers, specifically hi tech. In many cases, the technology that took generations to develop has essentially been given to the cheap labor manufacturers (China)....this was one of America's most strategic advantages, and they no longer have it.

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