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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

What evidence do you have that public schooling has been successful in reaching the ends you describe?Over the 20th century we have seen many social changes that would have horrified many of the Establishment at the start of the 20th century. For example, the Civil Rights Movement, leading eventually in a black guy being elected President of the USA, the second wave of feminism, resulting in women being elected leaders of countries as diverse as the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and India, the gay movement, leading to homosexuality being legalised and the current battle over same-sex marriage, or the neoliberal revolution deregulating markets and questionining Keyneisan orthodoxy. If public schools were intended to incalculate citizens in obedience then they've been rather massive failures at it.

In Colonial times, well the Americans revolted against the British, so they don't appear to have been particularly inoculated by obedience then. And funnily enough, the US is typically more religious than other Western countries, despite most other Western countries teaching Christainity in schools while it's forbidden in the USA (arguably, because religions in the USA don't have government support, they have to be on their toes more in keeping people faithful).

Please note I don't dispute what the aims were of public schools, I just dispute your claim about what public schools actually do achieve.

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robertwiblin's avatar

Intuitively seems wrong to me too.

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