do you believe that government should control education?

Question

opinions and suggestions...pls..

Answer 1

no, but they should work with the local and state government to make education better.

Answer 2

I believe the government should want to control the education of its citizens. There is no greater resource you can have than an educated populous. If the Bush administration were smart, they would be putting more money into strengthening the infrastructure of our country. The educational system should be the first place to enact change. American citizens should be the smartest people in the world. There is no excuse for anything less. Our archaic educational system needs a serious overhaul and needs to be made more realistic. There was a previous comment that mentioned how schools are afraid to damage any egos, and I think that's a big problem now as well.
Unfortunately, there are very powerful and organized groups of people in our country that wish to cripple and hinder the educational system. Most of these people are right-wing, conservative Christians who feel that the educational system is wrong or evil for teaching reality instead of superstition. Because they have been unable in recent years to enact legislature that creates a Christian norm within the American educational system (i.e., prayers in school or intelligent design), they have rejected the system in its entirety. Many of these people home-school their children and raise them sheltered from reality. They exhibit a pathology of portraying themselves as victims from "Liberals" who are attempting to destroy the fabric of American society and morality. For them, an educational system that supports science and healthy skepticism is unacceptable. The main reason for this behavior is a reactionary response to science, which is a direct odds with bronze-age, superstitious religious beliefs, so to justify their own selfish suspension of logic they attempt to twart and sabotage the educational system for the rest of us. Many members of the Bush Administration adhere to this goal, and therefore the present state of the system is a bad example of government controlling education. When Christian conservatives are able to take control of a system with unfair bias and ulterior motives, the system suffers as has been witnessed. No Child Left Behind has been repeatedly demostrated to be a complete and total failure.
I feel that until the next president takes office, that question will have more negative than positive connotations. Luckily, the majority of the presidential candidates for 2008, whether Republican or Democrat, seem to be more concerned about social and local infrastructure issues. Unfortunately, until then the system will continue to suffer and decline.

Answer 3

It would be a nice change since the government seems to have lost control of education.

Answer 4

there should be at minimal set guidelines to ensure that the kids can at least spell their names coming out of high school. I believe that programs that are toughening up on teachers requirements is a good thing. Apparently way too many illiterates were just pushed through. But on the other hand I do believe the parents need to get more involved in the raising of their children and take more time to back the schools when it comes to disciplining the kid.

Answer 5

The Federal Government should develop standards that all US students are expected to achieve by certain milestones. And I don't mean the weak standards already in place. The local governments should determine how those standards are to be met and what to do in case they aren't. The Federal Govt should retain some oversight to insure the state are meeting the standards. And all should quit treating education like a political football and teach our kids.

Answer 6

It should be oversight by an independent agency with full authority to execute guidelines and policies.

Without it, our education system will never catch up with India, Japan and others.

The bright side of this is, we can always import the critical talents or export our development abroad. It has being that way for decades.

Answer 7

We see the results of years of Public Education. What our nations kids need is school vouchers. Competition always does a couple of things all over the world. The quality of the goods and services gets better and the prices fall. So, whats wrong with a little competition for our public schools?

Answer 8

You aren't old enough to have seen the alternatives of dirt-floor shacks and shoeless children. The war on poverty slashed the percentage of poor in this country. The literacy rate is much higher now - in terms of actual literacy, as opposed to minimal reading skills. The failures have more to do with budget-cutting than the government. Oh - one more thing - if you took half the suspicion that you apply to the government and apply it to what you read on the internet - you would be much better off.

Answer 9

I think there should be guidelines for basic education, and vouchers to get your kids to those guidelines. I think we are too easy on the kids now, we don't push them hard enough because we are too PC. We don't want to bruise their little egos. I say give them a good bruising, they will heal!

Answer 10

control of education depends on what one means by "control". by my understanding it means regulating educational material. this is a good thing for it means everyone is given an equal exposure thus no one is marginalised and everyone is on a more or less similar level.but if it means to restrict one's knowledge, then control is a bad thing.but accepting the first interpretation as genuine we can say that government control of education ok.