Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!quintus!ok
From: ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: In defence of the K-12 school system
Message-ID: <700@cresswell.quintus.UUCP>
Date: 27 Feb 88 04:52:04 GMT
References: <73@unibase.UUCP>
Organization: Quintus Computer Systems, Mountain View, CA
Lines: 38

In article <73@unibase.UUCP>, leigh2@unibase.UUCP (Leigh Calnek) writes:
> As an educator with responsibilities at the K-12 level, I

I'm not from North America.  What's "K-12"?

> In the first instance,
> we seem too quick to forget that western society has
> embraced a philosophy of universal education, at least for
> the population at the K-12 level.

The phrase back home used to be "free, universal, and compulsory".
Might be interesting to discuss this, or would that be talk.politics?

> How would post
> secondary institutions be different if they were required to
> accept ALL who presented themselves?  If they were subject
> to close scrutiny at the community level?  If social
> pressure prohibited a failure rate of less than 10%?  If 52%
> of the student population came from broken homes and for the
> most part that population was still trying to figure out who
> they were and what was their purpose in life?

What proportion of people who *seek* tertiary education are denied it?
Does anyone have any figures to show that the proportion of tertiary
students from broken homes is significantly different than the
proportion of primary students from such homes?  (Careful how you
measure it, of course:  the older the student, the longer his parents
have had to break up.)  As for "who am I, what is my purpose?", are you
really suggesting that 18-year-olds don't ask questions like that?
What evidence is there that the distribution of ``ability'' across the
children who are now taught is significantly different from the
distribution of ``ability'' across the children who used to be taught
before?

I'm sure such figures exist, this is a request for references.

But "Don't blame us, we now teach ALL the children" won't wash.
They were teaching ALL the children before my parents' time.