We Don't Need No State Education

Written By: Sheldon Richman  |  Posted: Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

Someone recently said that a particular elementary charter school is a big improvement over government schools because the kids have longer days there and are already thinking about college. I wonder if that's really an improvement. Kids spend too much time in the authoritarian classroom environment as it is. Homeschoolers are proud of how little time they have to put in to cover the state-required subjects.

And the "everybody must go to college" doctrine is hardly a blessing. How many young people are delivering pizzas with a diploma on the wall and a big student loan keeping them up at night? It's true that the watered-down, increasingly worthless bachelor's degree today is expected for nearly every job, but let's not fool ourselves: For most grads it's little more than a signal to potential employers that they had the perseverance to get up early four years running and jump through all the required hoops. That tells a human-resources (that term!) director enough about an applicant to separate her from a rival who didn't do those things. It doesn't say anything about what she knows or can do.

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