Is it just a coincidence that the education level of Americans has dropped since public schools and?

Question

compulsory attendence laws were put into place?

During colonial times most communities had laws that generally said that parents must provide an education to their children sufficent to allow them to function independently as adults. There were however no laws that compelled parents to send their children to schools and no government funded schools. By the end of the colonial period, the residents of the English owned American Colonies were the best educated people in the world. John adams once commented that (in modern terms) you only found an American adult who could not read and understand the bible once in a blue moon. After the United States was formed this trend continued until about the time of the civil war.

The First public schools were formed in the late 1840's and early 1850's. The first compulsory attendence law was implemented in Maryland in 1852. By 1929 every state had some form of cumpolsory attendance law. Continued...

When public schools were formed their official purpose was to ensure that a basic education was available to all. At the time, American children were for the most part taught at home and they were usually classically educated, Classical education is usually taught via the trivium. The Trivium consists of Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric. Grammar consists of the memorization of facts, logic the examination of information for logical fallacies and the forming of arguments for discussion, and Rhetoric the art of public speaking and Rhetorical arguments. When the Public schools were formed they were designed to teach only the grammar (information) portion of the trivium. Thus, students who attended public schools without further instruction were less educated than their private school counterparts. The problem is that information without a way to apply it is virtually useless. Since the introduction of public schools we have gone from the best educated nation to the worst.

Public Schools continue to teach only the grammar portion of the trivium and that not very well. Very few still refuse to accept that the U.S. has the worst education system of any non-third world nation.

Knowledge without the ability to apply that knowledge is pointless. The result of the lack of logic and Rhetoric is that few Americans are able to understand the basic issues of their day, to act publicly for change and to have their voices heard and accepted.

Answer 1

While it is true that more students are rebelling against education and refusing to learn, it is important to note that this is their own fault.

Those students who apply themselves to their studies are far better educated than in John Adams day. There is simply much more information to learn now than in the "good old days."

Answer 2

I don't think we are anywhere close to being the worst educated country - no where near our potential, but definitely not the worst.

During the days of John Adams, individuals only had to learn how to read and understand the Bible because it had no direct effect on their livelihood or potential (mostly because 90% of all jobs were manual labor or agriculturally based). John Adams was also a Harvard graduate, and although his thought was sincere in message, it lacked the depth in understanding of an evolving society.

That low standard of education is absolutely impossible in today’s world. Someone whose intellectually abilities extend to only reading and understand basic concepts is destine to work food services, retail, or agricultural with little to no chance of advancement until further education is undertaken.

Our educational system, as flawed as it is, is still adequate for the needs of our country. The troubles that it has, lie in our compulsion to teach all children the same, teach to the lowest common denominator, not adequately allowing for faster (or slower) advancement and a current push for nationalization standards in a wide and varying country. Unfortunately, the recent “No Child Left Behind” act has aggregated these problems exponentially.

The fix for education (if one is realistically possible) is to return to a local level of education, with emphasis on an individual’s learning style and potential, while allowing each individual to choose his or her specialty in life and pursue said interest once reading and understanding are reasonably comprehended.

I was lucky enough to be educated by a Waldorf School and did not step into a public school until High School (and then it was by choice). But, I still believe that the public school system offers enough possibilities and holes for individual potential to warrant some level of trust. All you have to do is look at some of the wonderful minds that were able to come out of our public school system and change the scope of human intelligence to know that the system does still operate at an acceptable level.

The problem I see with Home Schooling (and being a Waldorf Student means that I’ve seen a lot of it) is that children rarely ever become smarter then their parents. Almost all parents have holes in their abilities or lack the resources/ requirements/time to provide their children with an education that equals the scope of a publicly educated child. John Adams himself hired tutors for his children and sent John Jr. off to friends to ready him for Harvard. It was his acceptance to his own shortcomings that allowed him to release his own son into the hands of others for a proper education.

Edit:

The public education system teaches everything from biology, to chemistry, debate, mathematics, computers and literary analytical comprehension.

I’ve spent time volunteering in a number of “third world” countries and I can tell you right now that we are no where near it. What we as a country do a horrible job at is inspiring individualism. Sure the trivium isn’t what it use to be (although rhetoric will always be suasory in our society), but it doesn’t need to be as such. In the times where rhetoric was taught as part of the trivium, only a small percentage of people were educated at all – and even then, most of them weren’t educated in anything useful. Today, everyone is schooled enough to let them become productive. They learn the basics so that they can work towards a greater good, and they don’t even have to be able to comprehend what that greater good is!

Third world countries teach reading and writing, with very little else. But that is where they are as a society. They are now where our country was when John Adams said his famous line. What we needed then was more manual labor, more agricultural workers, and more people who know enough of the basics to build our fledgling nation.